Show Notes
How do eNGOs begin to adopt commercial finance in order to pay for conservation or restoration aims? Gwyn Williams, head of conservation investment, shares the experience of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) as the charity has expanded to debt and equity finance, in addition to exploring forms of private finance - such as peatland carbon credits or biodiversity net gain - in order to meet conservation demands.
More from Financing Nature
In this fourth and final episode of the GFI's special series on UK nature finance, host Phoebe Tucker is joined by Annabel Davidson Knight, Community Benefits from Nature Adviser at the Scottish Land Commission, to ask a pressing question as private investment scales up: how do we make sure local communities are included, not sidelined? The conversation explores why community voice matters in natural capital projects, how to avoid repeating historic patterns of exclusion and extraction, recent market developments and the standards emerging to guide good practice, and the practical and financial business case for putting community inclusion at the heart of nature restoration. For listeners who want to learn more about the Scottish Land Commission's work, you can visit its website or explore relevant resources mentioned in this podcast, including the: Community benefits from natural capital investment Route Map (April 2025), Scottish Land Commission Community Inclusion Standard, Nature Finance Certification Alliance Flex 705 V1.0 Nature Markets Community Engagement and Benefits, BSI Natural Capital Market Framework, Scottish Government Rural Land Market Policy Briefing 2026, Scottish Land Commission (published after podcast recording)
In this third episode of the GFI's special series on UK nature finance, host Phoebe Tucker is joined by Luke Baldwin, Co-Founder and CEO of Nature Broking, to explore the UK’s nature-based carbon market space and, specifically, what needs to happen to unlock growth from a demand-side perspective.
In this second episode of the GFI's special series on UK nature finance, host Phoebe Tucker is joined by Jack Spees, CEO of the Ribble Rivers Trust, to talk about how we can unlock investment into nature-based solutions from the UK's water industry. The discussion centres around the Mainstreaming Nature-based Solutions (MNBS) Programme, a collaborative partnership between 23 organisations that is supported by the Ofwat Innovation Fund to test solutions across eight regions in the UK. Here we talk about the water industry and their recent pressures, regulatory constraints, explorations and potential solutions in scaling investment into nature – and what is needed to unlock this opportunity amid wider water industry reform. For listeners who want to learn more about the MNBS Programme, you can visit its official website.
In this first episode of the GFI's special series on UK nature finance, host Phoebe Tucker is joined by Seren Patterson, Water Stewardship Manager at the Rivers Trust, to talk about its Replenish model - also known as Volumetric Water Benefit Accounting - in channeling private sector investment into water storage and water quality outcomes. For listeners who want to learn more about the Replenish model, you can visit the Rivers Trust's Replenish Toolbox, the underlying VWBA methodology (2.0), and a recent blog post written by Patterson (26.06.26) on the rise of water stewardship and the VWBA methodology. You can also read about the Coca-Cola Replenish partnership, mentioned in the episode.
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