The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has published a policy paper setting out how the government intends to draw private investment into nature recovery across England, with a new private finance taskforce for sustainable farming among its commitments.
Growing Places: Mobilising private finance for local nature recovery, released on 26 October to coincide with Finance Day at the COP17 biodiversity summit, is built around three aims: creating demand for investment in nature from the built environment, water and agri-food sectors; strengthening confidence in nature markets through clearer standards; and helping local areas assemble projects that investors can fund.
The paper records that more than 350 biodiversity net gain sites, covering over 10,000 hectares, are now on the public register, and that Local Nature Recovery Strategies cover all of England through 48 strategies. Water companies are expected to invest more than £3bn in nature-based solutions between 2025 and 2030, while £140mn has gone into nutrient mitigation across 27 catchments subject to nutrient neutrality advice. The Big Nature Impact Fund will use up to £30mn of public first-loss capital with the aim of attracting at least twice that sum from private investors.
For farmers, the paper promises a private finance taskforce to raise investment in sustainable farming, a “Soilshot” programme piloting ways for supply chains to pay for on-farm soil health, and a call for evidence in 2027 on a common national standard for regenerative agriculture. Biodiversity net gain will extend to nationally significant infrastructure projects from November 2026.
In her foreword, Defra minister Jenny Riddell-Carpenter MP writes that “a thriving natural environment is a critical part of the infrastructure on which our economy depends”. Writing on the Defra Environment blog, Will Lockhart, Defra’s Deputy Director for Nature Markets and Investment, said draft principles for combining environmental payments are proposals only, with webinars and roundtables planned over the autumn and winter. The paper itself notes that Cornwall’s nature market pilot was paused for lack of demand.
For rural landowners and farm businesses, the paper signals where new income streams from habitat, soil and flood-management work are likely to come from, and the standards those schemes will need to meet.
