RSPB Natural Capital Investment Aggregation Vehicle

The RSPB has launched RSPB Nature Regen Ltd as an aggregation vehicle to sell ecosystem services, funding habitat restoration through direct sales of biodiversity net gain (BNG) and carbon units.

Six pilot sites covering 150-200ha will deliver biodiversity and climate benefits, with a long-term goal of managing 12,000ha.

The model mitigates financial risk for the RSPB while allowing corporations to meet sustainability targets. Though initially self-funded, the vehicle may seek private investment for large-scale projects. The project also explores expansion into other environmental markets like nutrient neutrality.

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Fixing the decline of nature in England will require more investment than is available from public and charitable sources, and this project should allow RSPB to use private finance and environmental markets to further our charitable objectives of restoring nature and wildlife.

This is a new field for us as a wildlife charity and RSPB will need to develop new investment models and internal governance to engage with it appropriately in order to participate in addressing the climate and nature crisis through private finance and planning to scale this rapidly.

An RSPB innovation programme has developed capacity to engage with financial markets, including establishing England’s first debt-financed habitat bank to protect corn buntings in Devon. This NEIRF project allows us to build on this and engage with equity finance for the first time, working with our established financial advisors Finance Earth.

The project involves developing the internal codes of practice, ethical and financial risk screening processes, and business and investment models needed to establish an equity aggregation vehicle and engage properly with it.

Over autumn and winter 2021 we are developing business and investment models based on 6 nature sites around the country that we would love to restore for nature but have struggled to fund from our income as a charity. In spring and summer we will be formally deciding whether to go ahead with a selected aggregation model and capital works on these six sites and/or others around the country, and in that case raising finance for the vehicle. If it’s successful we’ll look to expand the model and use it for other wildlife sites.