Eunomia’s study, conducted for the Forestry Commission and published by Natural England, explored the perceptions, motivations, incentives, and barriers for buyers in voluntary nature markets. The results will help inform government policy and support local project partners in the Nature Returns Programme to develop effective green finance strategies.
The research focused particularly on buyers of emerging ecosystem services around water quality, natural flood management, and biodiversity rather than the established markets for carbon credits, statutory biodiversity net gain, and nutrient neutrality. It identified a range of drivers – for example, enhancing reputations and managing risks – although these do not currently motivate buyers enough to achieve government targets for scaling up private finance for nature recovery.
Eunomia’s literature review and interviews with buyers revealed the challenges and barriers they encounter. These include uncertainty over policy, the markets themselves, and how to measure outcomes. The study highlighted the need for clear, strong, decisive direction on nature markets by the UK government to build buyer confidence, increase transparency, and promote learning.
The project was designed to expand knowledge within the nature finance sector and support the development of new nature markets and standards. It also aimed to build an evidence base that will help Nature Returns local partnership projects find buyers and effectively market their ecosystem services to buyers, and to identify – and recommend ways to plug – gaps in the evidence.
