CreditNature is a Nature FinTech company that is creating an end-to-end solution that funnels private capital into nature restoration projects.
CreditNature’s core product revolves around Digital Nature Assets and the Natural Asset Recovery Investment Analytics (NARIA) framework. These innovative financial tools are designed to facilitate investment in nature recovery projects, providing a new mechanism for environmental credit markets. By doing so, CreditNature addresses critical environmental challenges while offering tangible benefits to investors and stakeholders.
Digital Nature Assets are digital credits that represent a verified stake in nature recovery projects. These tokens are linked to specific land assets committed to nature restoration efforts. Their unique aspect lies in their ability to provide investors with access to investible, nature-positive opportunities that directly contribute to ecosystem recovery. By purchasing these assets, investors can track the impact of their investments through real-time reporting and gain enhanced brand reputation and PR value through credible impact reporting.
CreditNature produces two types of Digital Nature Asset, a Project Token (Nature Investment Certificate) and Claim Tokens (Nature Credit). Both of these tokens are utility tokens, and as such, they do not represent a physical asset. Their value is instead tied to the utility provided by nature recovery and uplift in ecosystem integrity.
1) Nature Investment Certificates represent nature recovery at the project level, making them attractive to buyers interested in contributing to nature recovery and proving their contribution with a certificate on the blockchain.
2) Nature Credits provide buyers with an opportunity to evidence of an uplift in ecosystem integrity that qualifies under emerging sustainability disclosure and reporting guidelines.
The NARIA framework provides a robust, science-based measure of ecosystem integrity and recovery. NARIA utilizes a linked Ecosystem Integrity Index and an ecosystem management rating system to measure and forecast improvements in ecosystem health over time. The Ecosystem Integrity Index is scaled from 0-100 and is made up of four metrics that are Landscape Connectivity, Vegetation Spatial Diversity, Trophic Function and Birt Trait Diversity.
This framework is designed to be upgradable as technological and methodological advances occur, ensuring that it remains at the forefront of environmental analytics. NARIA’s primary applications include creating nature-positive markets, enabling nature credits that are tailored to specific jurisdictions and ecosystems, and facilitating risk management and investment rating in alignment with global financial disclosure and sustainability standards.
Together, Digital Nature Assets and the NARIA framework represent CreditNature’s groundbreaking approach to environmental finance. They aim to make investing in nature recovery not only viable but also attractive for corporates, investors, and landowners by addressing the demand for trustworthy nature-positive investments and offering a solution to the challenge of creating commercially valuable and ecologically beneficial interactions with land assets.
CreditNature’s product is an emblematic shift towards embedding environmental recovery in financial markets, presenting a scalable, impactful, and innovative solution to the urgent global need for biodiversity restoration and ecosystem resilience.
It is now recognised that the climate and biodiversity crises are inseparable and must be addressed urgently and holistically. Recent global assessments consider the loss of nature a fundamental risk to the function of human societies and economies. In response, the government, investors, and civil society are beginning to recognise that our world must not only become net zero but also nature positive.
Despite this recognition, there is huge amount of work to do to bridge the finance gap for nature. The flow of private capital into nature is confronted with various barriers including a lack of standardised metrics and valuation methods, a lack regulatory and policy guidance, as well as the perceived risks, both financial and reputational, associated with nature investments.
Nature-based solutions provide critical investment opportunities, as they are cost-effective and provide multiple benefits. Investment opportunities in sustainable land management can increase fourfold by 2050 based on the long-term profitability of sustainable food and commodity production – critical to catalyze private investment. Protection of diverse ecosystems is highly cost-effective, representing 80 per cent of the additional land needed for nature-based solutions while absorbing just 20 per cent of additional nature-based solutions financing by 2030. Given the scale of degradation globally, restoration provides massive opportunities to strengthen ecosystem function and resilience to deliver the ecosystem services that people rely so heavily upon.
Led by Cain Blythe (CEnv MCIEEM) and Dr Paul Jepson (Dphil.) CreditNature was born in Novermber 2022 out of Ecosulis – a nature-based solutions company with over 30 years’ experience. Cain and Paul recognised the need for a trustworthy mechanism to funnel private investment into nature recovery, and therefore went about developing, investing in and testing the NARIA framework.
CreditNature has assembled a small but high impact team, with extensive experience in biodiversity monitoring, ecosystem and earth science, finance and technology. CreditNature has also been blessed with partners and advisors that have contributed for many years to the development of the CreditNature suite of products.
CreditNature’s mission is to direct private investment into nature recovery projects in order to create a resilient and regenerative rural economy, while offering sustainably-minded corporate investors the opportunity to become truly ‘nature positive’. CreditNature are doing this by creating an end-to-end solution that finances nature recovery via the sale of digital nature assets.
CreditNature is working with the Scottish Government, NatureScot and SEPA to develop an option for a new voluntary biodiversity market in Scotland. This solution has strong potential to scale responsible private investment into nature restoration in Scotland.
Following the outcome of a competitive research and development procurement process, CreditNature have been selected to take part in the Scottish Government’s flagship innovation accelerator programme, CivTech. During the Accelerator, CreditNature developed a solution to the CivTech Challenge of “How can biodiversity credits be designed in a way that provide simplicity for projects and buyers and enables investment in Scotland’s nature?” set by challenge sponsors, Scottish Government, NatureScot, SEPA and the Scottish Wildlife Trust.
The Scottish Government and NatureScot are now providing funding of £500,000 to CreditNature under a pre-commercial agreement to develop this solution further.
Cain Blythe, Co-Founder & CEO
Cain Blythe is a Chartered Environmentalist and an award-winning leader in ecosystem restoration and nature recovery. He is the founder and CEO of two pioneering organisations leading the drive to help accelerate global rewilding. His expertise merges applied ecosystem practice, technology, finance and the recognition that the best outcomes are achieved through partnership and collaboration.
Paul Jepson, Co-Founder & Head of Innovation
Paul Jepson, a geographer, and internationally recognized thought leader in nature conservation. He is instrumental in developing cutting-edge ecosystem analytics and designing nature impact tokens to catalyse nature-positive investments. Over the past 40 years, Dr Jepson has contributed significantly to conservation research, policy, and management across a spectrum of international, governmental, civil society, academic, and commercial organizations.
