Helen Avery, Head of Nature Programmes, Green Finance Institute – Supplementary written evidence (NSD0051)

 

Evidence Helen Avery, Head of Nature Programmes, Green Finance Institute, following his evidence session on Tuesday, 19 October 2021.

 

  1. Mentioned in my remarks were several initiative and projects and I include links for more detail here:

 

Article 29, French Regulation

 

UK Army Corps Engineering with Nature

 

EIB Natural Capital Finance Facility

 

SLM Fund

 

Green Collar carbon farming

 

At the end of November, the Institute is launching GFI Hive which will showcase private investments in NbS from around the world with case studies that may of use to the Committee. It will be a knowledge sharing hub for the UK (and internationally) on private finance for nature, as well as establishing working groups across sectors to unlock barriers to finance for nature for the UK.

 

  1. It was asked whether carbon codes should be mandated. They cannot be mandated as they are verification mechanisms. While we spoke about the woodland and peatland carbon code there should be greater commitment to establishing a saltmarsh code and a soil carbon code. Both would move considerable financing for NbS.

 

  1. The question was raised whether a Coalition should being established by the Government. As you will know, the Green Finance Institute was set up by Government with seed funding to do exactly this – develop cross-sector Coalitions focused on driving finance into net zero and nature-positive solutions. We have two Coalitions at present - the Coalition for the Decarbonisation of Transport, and the Coalition for the Energy Efficiency of Buildings – and are launching our Nature Coalition within GFI Hive as mentioned in 1.

 

Over the past year as co-founder of the Financing Nature Recovery Coalition with Broadway Initiative (David Young) and Finance Earth (James Mansfield) we have brought together more than a hundred people to assess the barriers to finance, so that we can now begin to unlock them via GFI Hive and continued collaboration.

 

  1. I link here to our recent report that highlights the finance gap for nature in the UK.

 

29 October 2021