Investing in Nature Survey

We want to help grow investment in nature in Cornwall, and to understand how this can best serve Cornwall's environment and businesses. We will be researching this over the next few months, but as a first step we want to know your views.

From planting trees to restoring peatland – investing to secure Cornwall’s natural assets can help tackle climate change, increase our flood resilience, and boost biodiversity. There are lots of opportunities developing nationally to scale up investment, including:

• New sources of public funding for landowners to help deliver ‘nature-based solutions’ to problems like climate change, biodiversity loss and flood risks.
• Carbon credit markets to help organisations meet their corporate net zero targets.
• Biodiversity credit markets to help developers fulfil new ‘biodiversity net gain’ duties.
• Major commitments by private finance to invest in ‘natural climate solutions’.
• Business philanthropy, including opt-out schemes for customer transactions.

These could not only help deliver for nature, but provide new sources of income, new sources of investment returns, new ways to meet green duties and targets, and boosts to demand for nature-based skills.

But how can we make this work in Cornwall? How can Cornwall enable investors, land-based businesses and project deliverers to efficiently establish trusted relationships for the good of nature and our economy? We want to know whether you think Cornwall needs to nurture conditions to help match landowners and projects to funders, to pool funds to allow action at scale, or to provide assurances on delivery.

Please complete the following survey to help us understand your views. Whether you’re a land-based business looking for new sources of income, a developer trying to deliver your biodiversity net gain duty, or a company seeking to invest in nature to deliver their carbon-neutral or nature-positive ambitions – we want to know what you think Cornwall needs.

If you would like to engage with us in another way, please get in touch with us at grow-nature@cornwall.gov.uk.

Who are we?

This is a Government-funded research project titled 'Cornwall Habitat Bank feasibility study', funded via the Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund (NEIRF).

Led by Cornwall Council and delivered by Eunomia, it is running until mid-2022. We are researching how to catalyse green investment at the County-scale, in order to help deliver Cornwall’s forthcoming Local Nature Recovery Strategy - a blueprint for Cornwall's Nature Recovery Network.

The analysis will be steered by a group of local experts including developer representatives, farming and landowner representatives, and environmental stakeholders.

It is running alongside two more local, place-based NEIRF projects run by Cornwall AONB and Tamar Valley AONB, which are exploring mechanisms for boosting private investment at specific local sites.

This project is funded by:

How will we use your data?

We will use your data to analyse the state of the environmental market within Cornwall and to help shape future mechanisms to strengthen it. Preliminary analysis will be undertaken by Cornwall Council for this purpose, and only anonymised results will be shared with the participating consultancy, our steering group, and Cornwall and Tamar Valley Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Most fields of information are optional if you wish to skip anything.

Your personal information belongs to you and you have the right to: request a copy of what we hold about you; have it amended if it’s incorrect or incomplete; have it deleted; and withdraw your consent if you no longer wish us to process. If you would like further information about how we processed your information, please see our Privacy Policy.