Nature Investment in Edinburgh
The City of Edinburgh Council have completed a second stage of FIRNS (Facility for Investment Read Nature in Scotland) after a successful funding application was granted by Nature Scot and the National Heritage Lottery Fund. This stage builds on the findings of Round 1 which you can read more about here.
Working with partners Scottish Water and SEPA, this round of the FIRNS project aimed to establish pilot sites that could offer monetizable ecosystem service offerings to investors and buyers. This project used six pilot sites in the Linking Leith’s Parks project to explore how nature-based interventions could be monetised.
AtkinsRealis and Finance Earth, consultants on this round of the project, determined that many ecosystem services cannot be monetised in urban centres, due to their small size and fragmented nature. More generally, it was presented that many current metrics are not appropriate for quantifying the benefits of smaller nature-based interventions.
However, these findings did allow us to further investigate what metrics are most appropriate, as well as pivoting to identify net gains for biodiversity as a viable offering to buyers.
Engagement took place with Robertson’s Construction Group (Developer) and Montagu Evans (Planning Consultant) for insights on buyer considerations. This engagement emphasised that the planning system does need a structured approach. Clients like simplicity, and it would be highly beneficial to factor in costs for biodiversity interventions needed at the outset, as early as possible. Developers need to be taken on an educational journey to understand these benefits. The chief benefit of a structured approach should be the more transparent upfront costings for developments, with earlier visibility of the specific biodiversity compensation required.
A more structured approach to biodiversity compensation could also save up to two months in development timelines. Furthermore, developers are already familiar with the biodiversity net gain (BNG) metric and would appreciate consistency across England and Scotland.
Considerations from the engagement included:
- Ensure full coordination across the Council’s departments to ensure biodiversity requirements do not change during the planning process
- Concerns on delivering biodiversity sites further afield from development with limited local benefits. This could be mitigated by following the mitigation hierarchy, and selecting biodiversity sites in response to developments coming through the planning system
- Explore how this system could be adapted to companies wishing to invest for Environmental and Social Governance, as part of their corporate performance and responsible investing.
Recognising the constraints of the urban context, this project had to adapt and pivot its approach to deliver positive learning outcomes for the FIRNS programme and City of Edinburgh Council.
Key findings from this work were:
- Overall, BNG has the potential to support the Council’s ambitions through nature restoration and contributing towards wider nature recovery funding requirements. Further steps are needed to optimise the potential of a BNG-related policy in Edinburgh.
- In an urban setting, it can be difficult monetising benefits from green infrastructure (GI) ecosystem services. Based on a detailed review of ecosystem services, biodiversity was identified as the most promising route for monetisation
- BNG could contribute towards some of the overall nature recovery funding requirements, e.g. ongoing maintenance costs and establishment / enhancement
- Sites of a larger scale would be more suitable for BNG. This could be achieved through a mix of strategic urban and peri urban pilot sites that could be aggregated
- More detailed ecological assessments (BNG surveys) and more granular costings of interventions are required to model BNG potential more accurately
- A BNG-like policy could be developed in future to help streamline the development process through a structured approach to biodiversity compensation – this however would require further work at national and local scales.
To find out more about this project and future work, please contact Joe Clancy, City of Edinburgh Nature Recovery Coordinator, through the following email address: climatechange@edinburgh.gov.uk
The project documents below can also be requested from Joe Clancy:
- Metrics reports, including literature review
- Options Assessment Paper
- Buyer Engagement Deck
- Strategic Outline Case (available once Financial Case is added in early 2026)
- End of project report
This project is supported by The Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS). Delivered by NatureScot in collaboration with The Scottish Government and in partnership with the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
