FIRNS - The Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland - Successful Round 2 Projects

Development Phase Projects

This Development Phase project led by Fisheries Management Scotland will draw on the recent outputs of the national Fisheries Management Planning Project, to identify a pipeline of river restoration projects across Scotland that will provide opportunities for private investment through the new source to sea green finance fund being developed in FIRNS R1 (building on the success of SMEEF). The project will seek to aggregate individual actions into landscape-scale investment opportunities that will deliver impact at scale.

The aim of this project, delivered by Knoydart Foundation and Knoydart Forest Trust, with input from Trees for Life and Zulu Ecosystems, is to develop a place-based natural and social capital credit in Knoydart. This credit would enable direct investment in the restoration of Knoydart’s natural habitats and the regeneration of the community and would be shared with and/or replicated by other communities.

This project is led by Deciding Matters on behalf of the Nature Finance Certification Alliance. The project will create a commercially attractive and operationally sound Community Benefits Certification Process, co-designed with organisations who will support the adoption and roll-out of the certification mark. The Community Benefits Certification Mark will enable UK natural capital land-based projects to demonstrate their high integrity approach to deriving community benefits, via a self-verified or 3rd party verified certification process, depending on the maturity of the project. The certification process will be refined through deep-dive testing with six live projects and certification will include the necessary training and community capacity building. Certification will enable projects to be verifiably compliant to a future BSI Community Benefit Thematic Standard which is being explored as part of the UK Nature Investment Standards programme.

This project aims to build on practical and innovative governance mechanisms identified during a FIRNS Round 1 Development Phase Project. The desk-based development project in Round 1 aimed to develop a proof of concept for a whole farm and farm cluster approach to engaging in nature-based markets. This follow-on project aims to test some new governance mechanisms to deal with the key issues of complexity, scale and capacity with specific landowners and farmers in the Perth / Fife / Stirlingshire area of Scotland. The project will be delivered by a partnership of the Soil Association, Woodland Trust, and the Northwoods Rewilding Network.

Project L-AND will bring a cluster of farmers in the Pentland Hills Regional Park towards having investment ready natural capital projects through investor engagement, ecological baselining, and restoration planning, as well as community engagement centred around benefitting park users.

This project will take place within the catchment of the River Annan. Bringing together landowners under a newly formed Special Purpose Vehicle, this project will create and sign first trades contracts with both landowners and buyers. Accompanied by community engagement informed by a Community Engagement Plan this will allow the restoration of a pilot site as the first step towards delivering a pipeline of floodplain and riparian restoration within the catchment funded by nature finance.

This place-based project led by Dumfries and Galloway Council will progress three strands of work towards a wider ambition to restore and expand key coastal and marine habitats within the northern Solway Firth. The work will support the ongoing development of the £20m+ Solway Coast and Marine Project (SCAMP) which will be delivered in conjunction with and for the benefit of the local communities, while addressing the climate and nature crisis. The three strands are: developing a business model for two demonstration projects for non-managed-realignment saltmarsh expansion to inform Saltmarsh Code development; exploring governance and financing options for a community stake in expansion of the Loch Ryan oyster fishery; and working with three hub communities on co-designing the wider SCAMP project to incorporate their priorities and benefit ambitions.

This project will create an investment scheme for the City of Edinburgh to help fund the delivery of urban nature restoration and climate adaptation projects identified in the Edinburgh Nature Network and Green Blue Network. The credit/insetting scheme will allow locally-based businesses and organisations to invest in local projects as part of their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or wider net-zero commitments. The scheme will link the value of improvements to ecosystem services with the multiple benefits for people of more access to quality greenspace and interaction with natural environments.

Read our latest news release for the second round of funding - Nature finance investment fund surpasses £4 million mark (21 May 2024)

Last updated:21/05/2024