Revitalising our Estuaries: Investment Model for Estuary Restoration
Issue to be solved:
- Clean & plentiful water: The 3 NBS; floating ecosystem, saltmarsh restoration and oyster & mussel reintroduction will sequent carbon and improve water quality.
- Mitigation of & adaptation to climate change: Generating revenue for NBS that sequestrate carbon and improve biodiversity.
- Thriving plants & wildlife: Biodiversity net gain (BNG) opportunities in heavily modified estuaries.
Goals/aims:
- Carbon credits from saltmarsh/ mud flat restoration schemes.
- BNG for floating ecosystems.
- Water quality improvements from mussel ropes and oyster baskets and sale of catchment services as credits or ESG benefits aligned to sustainable development goals.
Benefits & outcomes:
ERM will provide economic (blue carbon credits) and environmental (HMWB/water quality/at risk habitat/species protection & enhancement) benefits generating sustainable ROI.
Partners role:
We will work closely with partners developing different innovations in this field and are keen to replicate outcomes of their fixed habitat model where conditions/ developments allow.
Knowledge input:
Knowledge and feedback will be shared for continual peer review, ongoing evaluation and refinement for maximum investor potential. This will include RoE partners, known sustainable financial investors, as well as other organisations involved in Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund project as and where relevant.
Project Aim
Generation of sustainable finance options to invest in innovative nature based solutions that improve poor water quality of our heavily modified river estuaries, helping them to achieve WFD Good Ecological Potential status.
The Creation of an Estuary Restoration Metric (ERM) quantifying returns on investment for 3 innovative, replicable Nature Based Solutions (NBS) for estuary restoration at a local – global scale.
Project partners
Funding model
ERM will provide economic and environmental benefits ripe for investment. Generating revenue by selling benefits to investors. Investment potential also lies in urban/peri-urban nature of estuaries with high value corporates, providing vested interest for investment in their back yard and a need to offset development impacts locally. Credits will be valued and available to purchase as singular and/or stacking opportunities. Revenue is from selling credits, biodiversity offsetting and CSR from increasingly important integrated Economic Social and Governance (ESG) reporting requirements for large corporates.
Potential buyers: Green/blue finance brokers and sustainable investment companies, corporates, developers, local authorities.
Sellers: Groundwork, landowners, Biomatrix (IP) Brokers supporting route to market.
Future Investment Potential
Investment into our innovate NBS will enable the development of more estuary restoration projects nationally. These include:
Floating ecosystem: 100% biodiversity net gain; plants, invertebrates, birds, sponges, seaweeds, shelter for migrating fish and new priority intertidal habitat.
Mudflat/saltmarsh: biodiversity uplift, allowing new species to colonise and increasing existing species abundance. Carbon sequestration of approximately 2 tonnes carbon per annum at 2 sites.
Oyster baskets/Mussel ropes: improvement of water quality and carbon burial due to mussels and oysters being filter feeders. Each oyster nursery site filters and improves up to 162,000 litres, whilst longer term each oyster will generate ~1 million larvae.
Out of date? Contact us at info@ecosystemsknowledge.net