Triodos Bank has been pioneering investment in the natural environment to find further ways of financing nature preservation and restoration. In the UK, the bank is using their resources and expertise to find viable projects in this new area of nature-based investment.
Restoring our depleted natural environment and reversing biodiversity loss is key to our future economic prosperity and wellbeing – as well as preventing and becoming more resilient to climate change –, Triodos Bank thinks. But the scale of investment needed is going to be significant.
Triodos Bank UK is using their resources and expertise to find viable projects in this new area of nature-based investment. This works by securing income from the economic outcomes that investment in environmental restoration can deliver, such as carbon storage, air quality, flood management and eco-tourism, as well as enhancing biodiversity and wildlife habitats.
Triodos Bank’s support for nature-based investment projects this year has included:
- A £3.75m loan to rewilding charity Heal – believed to be the first commercial loan of its kind in the UK – to create the first in a series of nature reserves in every English county
- A £20.55m loan to enable Oxygen Conservation to acquire two sites in Scotland, covering a total of 23,000 acres. This is understood to be the largest conservation-focused commercial debt package in the UK to date and allows Oxygen to take a significant step forward in its commitment to scaling conservation across the UK.
Plus, in 2021 the bank raised £2 million for charity Trees for Life in less than 48 hours through a bond offer on our crowdfunding platform. The funds supported the creation of the world’s first rewilding centre, which opened to the public in April 2023.
Pioneering investment in the natural environment
At Triodos Bank, they have been making money work for positive change for over 40 years and we see tackling climate change and environmental degradation as fundamental to our mission. For example, Triodos Bank provided sustainable finance in areas like early renewable energy developers, in organic food and farming and in Fairtrade businesses. By pioneering investment in the natural environment, they are helping to find further ways of financing nature preservation and restoration.
The bank will continue to explore models for nature-based investing with the ultimate aim of creating an economy that reflects and fully values the vital role that nature plays.
Bevis Watts, Chief Executive of Triodos Bank UK:
“As a sustainable bank, we have closely supported the organic, biodynamic and permaculture movements for decades. Now to further restore biodiversity and protect nature in the UK – and to address the climate and ecological emergencies – we must find further ways of financing nature preservation and restoration.
It’s time for the finance sector to play its role and use more imagination in how economic outcomes can be linked to investment in nature.”
Rich Stockdale, Managing Director of Oxygen Conservation:
“Triodos is changing what it means to be a bank. That’s why, when we were looking for someone to partner with, there was only one answer. It’s only by creating these types of funding packages and frameworks with respected financial institutions that people can have the confidence to allow private finance to flow into natural capital at scale – thereby funding the protection of the natural world.”
