Payment for ecosystem services

For the first time in our lifetimes landowners, land managers and farmers can make a positive contribution to nature recovery in the UK whilst being paid to do it. Government incentives through ELMS, and the emergence of regulated and voluntary markets in carbon, biodiversity and nutrients, mean that we can take long term strategic decisions to manage land differently: for the viability of our businesses, for our communities, for our nation and for the future of our planet.
Jim Lowther
Lowther Estates

In October ‘24 the G20 reaffirmed their commitment to delivering on existing international climate and nature targets simultaneously. They also agreed this is dependent upon making Payments for Ecosystem Services work.

In the UK this will only happen if there is an overt collective commitment across the public and private sector to restoring ecosystems across the UK as critical natural infrastructure for people.

Payments for Ecosystem Services (P.E.S.):

We need to ensure that statutory BNG contributes to building the SNN;
We need to make Nutrient Neutrality delivered through land-use change plugs into funding of the SNN;
We need to enable scaled-up voluntary carbon offsetting through the restoration of carbon-rich habitat so that the SNN becomes a vehicle that underwrites our net zero transition;
We need to enable voluntary biodiversity payments and other innovative PES as forward financing that ensures we create truly resilient nature that benefits society for centuries.
And, we need to incentivise the appropriate stacking of these PES that enables multifunctional land use, delivering added value.

Vivid purple heather growing next to rocks with view over green countryside

Only 2-3% of the UK is governed by natural processes
The UK’s high degraded natural systems offer huge potential for commercial and ESG returns if their restoration is financed by Payments for Ecosystem Services.

Payments for Ecosystem Services can harness private capital to restore our critical natural infrastructure if we collectively commit to Rebuilding Nature.

Biodiversity Net Gain
Biodiversity net gain refers to the regulations which require developers to show that their proposed plans will deliver a minimum of a 10% increase in biodiversity to the environment, with the habitat secured for at least 30 years.
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Nutrient Neutrality
Nutrient neutrality is the demonstration of zero additional nutrient contribution to rivers, estuaries and wetlands - in other words showing that a proposed development won't add to the current nutrient load, or may even reduce it.
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Carbon
As countries around the world begin to develop and implement effective measures to deliver the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the voluntary carbon market (VCM) has come into focus as a key tool that can contribute to that goal.
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Voluntary Biodiversity
In the plainest terms, voluntary biodiversity credits allow for companies and other major donors to pay for nature conservation, stewardship, or restoration and get an official measure of the positive impact.
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Public Spend
Utilising public money to leverage private finance will make money go further in delivering scaled-up impact.
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Payment for ecosystem services

Biodiversity Net Gain

Nutrient Neutrality

Carbon

Voluntary Biodiversity

Public Spend

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