NBS funding options

Natural Capital puts a value on Earth’s natural assets, such as soil, air, water and living things, in their role of providing natural services. These services include generating renewable energy, providing public water supplies, sequestering greenhouse gas emissions, and providing tourism and recreational opportunities. Landowners can potentially gain income through monetising the Natural Capital of their land.

From 12th February 2024, all planning permissions granted in England will be legally required to deliver a minimum of 10% biodiversity net gain. If BNG cannot be achieved on the development site, there are opportunities to deliver BNG off-site through a credits system. Landowners have the opportunity to gain income for delivering this off-site BNG on their land through options such as habitat banking or through selling biodiversity units to developers. A baseline ecological survey needs to be undertaken on the land in question before BNG can be delivered. The habitats would also need to be secured for 30 years, and would need to show evidence of restoration and enhancement.

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Various schemes allow landowners to gain income for storing additional carbon on their land (also known as carbon sequestration). This works through the mechanism of buying and selling carbon credits, and landowners can sell carbon offsets through the voluntary carbon market. Examples of carbon schemes include the Woodland Carbon Code, the Peatland Carbon Code, and Wilder Carbon. Other carbon codes are currently in the works. It is worth noting that landowners need to register their woodlands before planting begins.

For more information visit:

Woodland Carbon Code website
IUCN website
Wilder Carbon website

Natural Flood Management aims to restore the natural functions of rivers and water courses through techniques including creating storage ponds and installing leaky dams to help reduce flood risk for communities downstream. There may be funding available for NFM work where certain criteria are met.

Depending on the options for NBS on your land, there are various other grants and funding schemes available, including the government’s Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) and Countryside Stewardship (CS) schemes aimed at farmers and land managers. Our team can help you to explore these options.

For more information visit:

ELMS website
Countryside Stewardship website

As nature recovery becomes more of a priority in government policy, Nature-Based Solutions have a big role to play.

One example is the recent Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) policy, included in the Environment Act (2021). The LNRS are a new network of strategies that cover the whole of England and aim to establish actions that drive nature’s recovery at a local level.

Surrey’s LNRS is currently in development, but you can find out more about it and keep up to date here. The network of LNRS will then help to develop the national Nature Recovery Network.