Our Vision is to build national capability bridging scientific, finance, policy and third sector communities, harnessing and catalysing world-leading science to enable the greening of finance for nature and mobilisation of capital for nature recovery. The programme aligns with the 2023 UK Green Finance Strategy and Environmental Improvement Plan and is internationally relevant.?We bring together 17 research institutions, already engaging over 250 partners, into one high-impact network delivering co-designed, excellent and needs-orientated research, with activities that aim for broad-ranging impact. The programme comprises three 'flagship' initiatives, linked by a strategic coordination and integration hub. Flagship 1, Financing Green Sector Transitions, addresses the need to restore nature in the UK's agriculture sector, which accounts for over 70% of land-cover. In collaboration with the agri-food sector, investors and civil society, it will inform the development of financial tools and policies. These will be implemented at real-world sites in England and Northern Ireland to assess their impact on biodiversity. The research will also analyse the impact on habitats of international supply chains, such as tea and rubber imports. The goal is to create financial instruments and reporting mechanisms that benefit investors, land-users, nature and society, while addressing the impacts of global and UK agri-food chains on biodiversity. Flagship 2, Greening Finance for Nature, focusses on the decision-making processes of financial institutions such as banks and asset management companies. Their decisions can impact nature adversely, yet change could substantially address biodiversity loss. The focus will be on portfolio risk management, business strategy, risk disclosure and the prevention of greenwashing. The challenges include securing reliable data, addressing gaps in scientific knowledge and bridging the gap between science and finance. The goal is to revolutionise financial decision-making by incorporating nature within it. This will be driven by scientific data and guidance, and new regulatory frameworks. Flagship 3, Financing Biodiversity, tackles the challenge of financing biodiversity conservation and restoration with integrity at large-scales. It will promote best practices and coordination in biodiversity finance, and will champion the importance of between-site biodiversity and extinction risk reduction. This will ensure that conservation and restoration is effective, interconnected and extends beyond individual sites. Key stakeholders, including the Biodiversity Credit Alliance that co-designed the flagship, will help deliver a theory of change for scaling-up biodiversity finance. The goal is to define what high-integrity finance for biodiversity should look like, identify barriers and opportunities and start addressing them.

Aonachadh (ún`-ach-A) is gaelic for coming together, for two faces of a mountain that meet to form a uniting ridge. Building on and expanding an existing network of over 280+ organisations, we will bring together a wide range of stakeholders interested in investable biodiversity uplift projects. We will develop methods for creating standardised, accessible, and verifiable data, metrics and tools for voluntary biodiversity markets, and co-create research questions and a programme of work that can lead to a common framework for data gathering and business models and community engagement methods acceptable to supply-side projects as well as demand side investors. Research activity will enable us to come together in workshops and working groups to collaboratively co-create research questions, and then share, discuss and learn from lessons emerging from biodiversity uplift pilot projects engaging with voluntary markets in Scotland. Our research network - of established and emerging projects, financiers and policy makers - will contribute to NERC's Nature Positive Future programme from the unique context of Scotland, which is experiencing unprecedented increases in land values alongside a land reform agenda that seeks to deliver benefits from biodiversity markets for local communities. Scotland's place-based approach to ecosystem market development provides a unique opportunity to understand interactions between biodiversity, finance and society and what this means for environmental and economic resilience. Recent and ongoing work from the core team, and established connections with UK stakeholders and channel partners Ecosystems Knowledge Network and the Green Finance Institute, means we can initiate a quick start for more results and impact.