In This Month's Newsletter:
Nature Markets Principles Standard Published
Join tomorrow's webinar with Ian Dickie, Technical Author for the standard & eftec Director: 27 March, 2pm
Independent Water Commission Opens Consultation
Plus an example of successful restoration of waterways from our projects
Reflecting on envecon 2025
Watch Kerry ten Kate's keynote on transitioning land use
Nature Market Overarching Principles Standard Published
Join tomorrow's webinar with Ian Dickie, eftec Director and Technical Author for the standard: 27 March, 2pm
The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth, yet markets and the economic system for resource allocation still fail to adequately value nature and incentivise its improvement. Nature markets are an emerging intervention aiming to address these market failures. To be effective, these markets must be considered ‘high-integrity’ so that we can be confident of returns for both nature and investors, making the development of a set of common principles and practices necessary.
After a year of development work and public consultations, this week the British Standards Institution (BSI) has published their overarching principles and framework specification for nature markets (BSI Flex 701 v2.0). eftec Director, Ian Dickie, was the Technical Author of this standard.
The standard addresses principles to be shared across market participants, the sale of credits, purchasing credits, the roles of registries, and trading processes. Requirements cover a variety of areas, including transparency, the quantification of credits, additionality, verification, community engagement, stacking, double counting, and much more.
We congratulate Ian, BSI, Defra, the entire Advisory Group, and all those who gave feedback on the release of the nature market principles standard. This represents a significant step in the development of a high-integrity nature market regime to scale-up investment into the restoration of nature across the UK.
Join Ian at BSI’s webinar tomorrow, March 27th, at 2pm: Click Here
To access the standard, click here.
Image: Rob Fraser, somewhere-nowhere.com
Independent Water Commission Opens Consultation
Plus an example of successful restoration of waterways from our projects
The Independent Water Commission has opened a call for evidence inviting views on future changes to the water sector. Areas the commission are reviewing include how bills are set, environmental regulation, the financial resilience of water companies, and how to attract investment into the sector. We encourage you to share your feedback with this commission: you can read more here or go directly to the call for evidence here. The deadline for responses is midnight on Wednesday, 23 April 2025.
This news inspired us to reflect on one of our projects. Back in 2023 we evaluated the costs and benefits of the Water for Growth project carried out in Cornwall by the Westcountry Rivers Trust (WRT). This project involved £2.5 million of funding which was used to remove barriers to fish passages in the local rivers and modernise payment methods for angling in the area (among other interventions).
We found that this investment returned benefits of around £7.70 for every £1 spent: providing an example of successful investment to improve freshwater ecosystems to benefit local economies and communities.
Reflecting on envecon 2025
Watch Kerry ten Kate's Keynote Speech
We spent 14th March at envecon 2025: meeting with academics, policymakers, and business leaders to learn from the latest evidence in applied environmental economics and discuss what this means for decision-making.
In particular, we were struck by the keynote speech from Kerry ten Kate, who drew from over twenty years of experience working with companies, financial institutions, governments, and non-profits to recover nature in the context of sustainable development.
Kerry's keynote focuses on the challenge of successfully and fairly transitioning land use in the UK (with implications far beyond). She first identifies recent successes in legislation, such as the introduction of BNG requirements, before highlighting the urgency for further action and the key challenges ahead. Kerry gives clear and practical recommendations on what policymakers and economists can do to enable the restoration of nature in the UK, encouraging all of us to ask:
“How can my work be used to improve the quality of decision-making, problem solving and implementation as soon as possible?”
As stated by Ian Dickie during his introduction, Kerry has a track record of being ahead of her time: so we encourage you all to watch to her keynote speech, which UKNEE have chosen to make available to all.
To watch it in full, click here.
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