Groundwork NE & Cumbria: Accelerating economic and environmental improvement in estuary regions
Revitalising our Estuaries (RoE) Sustainable Finance
Groundwork's RoE programme delivers critical Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) to six major estuary regions across Northeast England. Using a blend of public and corporate investment, they look to accelerate economic and environmental improvement in the region. Groundwork’s aim is to develop a value proposition and finance model that would allow selling of credits generated across their flagship developments.
Image Source: Groundwork
Project
Accelar collaborated with JBA consulting to explore investment opportunities, build confidence with engaged stakeholders, and develop a sustainable investment model for trading credits based on nature-based solutions (NBS) installed on the estuary. Accelar helped to define the format for a potential investment model, allowing them to take these ecosystem services created through the project to market.
Groundwork’s new investment model allows them to confidently approach identified investors with clearly defined, independently validated products for increasing development of estuarine NBS.
Impact
Across 464 hectares of sites for potential NBS interventions, 69 interventions were assessed. From this, the key marketable ecosystem services were identified and built as part of a business model. The data was fed into a sustainable finance model and built out into a 93 hectare pilot.
Biodiversity and carbon analysis forecasted potential value creation of £1.3 - £5.8 million through revenue from these ecosystem services, delivering up to 122 biodiversity units and 8,500 tonnes of sequestered carbon.
Image source: Matt Simms, provided by Groundwork
“Accelar have provided Groundwork with the essential expertise in the blue/green finance sector to analyse the potential metrics that are used for this project. Accelar, working with JBA, have identified which ecosystem services apply to our work and how this could apply and be scaled up across the estuaries. Accelar have been key to this process supporting Groundwork and its Project Team on their first foray into the world of investment readiness.”
Services
The Accelar team:
Performed research and analytics to help review the nature-based solutions and associated benefits.
Explored ecological data, biodiversity metric calculations and carbon sequestration rates to size ecosystem service marketplaces.
Modelled the tradeable benefits and market mechanisms into a proposition to help leverage private sector finance.
Engaged with the finance and business community to gauge interest in funding the nature restoration.
Marketed the environmental and financial benefits of the project, producing market-facing collateral and delivering the final implementation plan.
Presented at a local workshop to local businesses to gauge interest in the project and help shape the design of the ecosystem markets.