Our Mission

 

In line with the broader Green Finance Institute’s vision of a greener future made possible by finance, the Nature Team (GFI Hive) is committed to supporting the transition of the global economy to one that values and invests in the natural environment.

Our mission, therefore, is to increase the role of the private sector in paying for and investing in nature restoration, nature-based solutions and nature-positive outcomes, ensuring that communities are engaged and rewarded within this new paradigm.

Like our colleagues across GFI, we are wholly outcomes-focused, and work across the UK with the finance sector, government, academia, environmental NGOs and land managers to identify and unlock barriers to this mission, and increasingly work internationally to apply and gather learnings.

 

 

The UK Challenge

 

In 2021, we commissioned environmental economics consultancy, eftec to estimate the financing gap for UK nature targets. Some £44 billion to £97 billion in additional financing was identified as being needed to achieve the UK’s key nature goals by 2030. This estimate was based on the limited data available at that time, but illustrates the monumental task at hand. Globally this gap is estimated to be over $8 trillion to 2050.

 

To fill this gap, private sector finance is required to pay for natural capital preservation and regeneration, and at GFI Hive we aim to mobilise this finance across three pillars we view as simultaneously critical to the mission.

 

What we do at GFI Hive

 

In order to respond to the above challenges, GFI Hive:

  • Brings together government, the finance sector, communities, land managers, academia, business and eNGOs to collectively identify barriers to the flow of private sector capital into high integrity nature projects, and to co-design solutions – be those policy changes, knowledge exchange, data platforms or financial products.
  • Supports and advises on over £14 million of the UK’s natural environment investment readiness funds that help develop the crucial pipeline.
  • Designs and manages toolkits as free resources for over 100 land managers to speed up pipeline and identify barriers.
  • Works with UK government and over 500 UK businesses to support the assessment of nature-related impacts and dependencies (risks).
  • Collects data on UK nature investment and hosts a knowledge sharing hub with resources, podcasts and case studies on nature investment deals.

 

In addition to our nature and finance work at GFI Hive, the Green Finance Institute hosts the Secretariat for the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures and runs the TNFD’s UK National Consultation Group. GFI also oversees the Land, Nature, and Adapted Systems Advisory Group (LNAS Advisory Group) advising the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on definitions of economic activities that can be defined as environmentally sustainable as part of the broader UK Green Taxonomy.

GFI Hive is funded by philanthropic donors and government and we invite you to connect with us using the email below and by subscribing to our monthly newsletter.