Nature Market Principles published to combat greenwashing

The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, Woodland Trust and National Trust have published new Nature Markets Principles to encourage responsible private investment in nature’s recovery while combatting corporate greenwashing.

There are nine voluntary principles, which cover carbon credits, biodiversity units and nutrient credits. On the supply side, the charities want to see seven project development principles:

• science-based nature recovery;

• environmental and social safeguarding;

• additionality;

• permanence and financial prudence;

• seek co-benefits;

• verifiability; and

• transparency.

On the demand side, there are two principles to apply to ecosystem service buyers and investors:

• buyer screening criteria; and

• commitment to best practices.

The charities pointed to a £6bn annual funding gap for UK nature recovery across land and sea, and the UK government target to grow annual private investment in nature by at least £500m by 2027, rising to over £1bn by 2030.

The principles were produced with responsible investment specialists Finance Earth and Federated Hermes.

James Alexander, chair of Finance Earth, said: “Enshrined in the principles are the need for projects to be science-based, transparent and verifiable, ideally in perpetuity and benefiting local communities as well as society more broadly. There are also stipulations about who the producers of the credits will do business with, ruling out those companies dependent on environmentally damaging activities such as fossil fuel extraction.”