Financing nature-based solutions using Environmental Impact Bonds

Norfolk Rivers Trust has received £70,000 in grant funding to explore the application of an ‘environmental impact bond’ to reduce phosphates and other pollutants from entering the River Stiffkey, through the creation of nature-based solutions.

The project, which is 1 of 27 schemes to benefit from the £10m Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund (NEIRF), will model revenues from this intervention in the form of phosphate credits, and it will explore other ecosystem services for additional revenue sources.

In addition, the work will build on the knowledge gained during a pioneering project between NRT, Anglian Water and the Environment Agency to improve water quality through the creation of an integrated constructed wetland on the River Ingol in 2018; the wetland naturally cleans treated outflow that is released from Ingoldisthorpe Water Recycling Centre (WRC), providing a final ‘polish’ to the effluent before it flows into the chalk-fed Ingol.

Further notes:

NEIRF was set up to support the development of environmental projects in England that:

• Help achieve one or more natural environmental outcomes from the 25 year environment plan
• Have the ability to produce revenue from ecosystem services to attract and repay investment
• Produce an investment model that can be scaled up and reproduced

Read more here.

Ingol wetland creation (Credit: William Morfoot Ltd.) (Ingol wetland)

Wetland establishment