The Second Round of the NEIRF Highlights Diversity in Ecosystem Services

Round 2 of the Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund has been allocated to 50 projects, awarding 44 successful organisations. Accelar have broken down this allocation, to examine the successful ecosystem services in more detail.  

The first round of NEIRF funding was allocated in July 2021, with 27 projects receiving a share of the £2.4 million pot made available by DEFRA, the Environment Agency and Natural England. The second round of funding was targeted at further developing ecosystem services, alongside supporting greater involvement from local authorities and agricultural-based organisations.  

The second round of NEIRF funding amounts to £4.6 million, nearly twice the size of the first round, and with that, 50 projects were selected for 44 organisations. It has an average allocation of £92k, which remains consistent with what was allocated in Round 1. The grant funding is mainly centred around projects focusing on the most well-developed ecosystem services; biodiversity creation (15), carbon banking (11) and flood alleviation (6). Projects that seek to harness multiple ecosystem services are the most common, nearing £2m of the total allocation. Habitat credits received nearly £1m in funding alone. In addition to ecosystem services, there has also been an increase in projects that focussed on the creation of standards/codes, with £558k in funding. We’ve also seen an increase in projects focussing purely on the business modelling required to make nature-based projects successful, with an allocation close to £300k for these projects alone.

In terms of the organisations applying for the funding, over half (£2.43m) has been allocated to charities, alongside 12 projects from private organisations and 12 projects from public bodies. The National Trust was the most successful applicant, with four projects awarded, followed by Plymouth City Council with three. Regarding the geographical distribution, we’ve seen a much more even spread across the UK. Note that 12 projects have been excluded from the map below as they were not location specific. Projects that had a secondary theme focusing on wider environmental benefits (39) were prevalent, followed shortly by those with economic benefits (8) and social benefits (3).

Accelar’s Impact Hub reviews nature-based projects in greater detail and is set to feature the key environmental and financial metrics from Round 1 projects. To learn more about how nature-based projects have generated revenue, or to contribute your project to the hub, then please register for free here.  

Accelar is actively supporting a range of clients to get their nature recovery and climate change green finance projects off the ground, see here for further information or get in touch with our senior consultant Michael Smith to discuss how we can help.