We provide guidance to tackle questions like:

 

• How to allocate and spend public money for public goods?

• How can economic value evidence be used to channel private investment into nature?

 

Through policy design, we aim to correct the failure of the market to recognise the economic value of nature. We examine how wider economic, social, and environmental impacts on society in a way that ensures their increased delivery. This includes:

 

• Implementing policy instruments that hold polluters accountable for the environmental harm they cause, such as full-cost pricing, green taxes, tradable permits, and voluntary agreements, to address costs.

• Establishing new markets that capture the positive value of these impacts, such as payments for ecosystem services, biodiversity offsets, and habitat banking, to highlight benefits. 

 

For example, nature based solutions and nature finance provide a diverse array of economic, social, and environmental benefits. By fostering collaboration and cost-effectiveness, they often present a more attractive option than traditional infrastructure. Our role is to help clients recognize where natural capital can offer sustainable and efficient solutions to achieve their goals.

 

Our analysis of the size, timing, and distribution of benefits from natural capital investments helps ensure that finance reflects the benefits that will be delivered. By linking benefits to natural capital assets, we can identify the spending necessary to maintain or enhance those assets, and therefore sustain the benefits in question.

 

This analysis serves various purposes, from informing public spending decisions, such as agricultural policy, to supporting private business plans. It is increasingly valuable in blended finance approaches, which combine public and private funding, and involves assessing multiple economic instruments and revenue streams to ensure their effectiveness.

 

Some of our clients for this service include:

 

Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), Welsh Government, European Commission, The Crown Estate, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), The Coal Authority (UK), Wildlife & Countryside Link, RSPB, Environment Bank, Peatland Code, Woodland Carbon Code.

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Contact person: Ian Dickie