West Midlands Local Investment in Natural Capital programme
The Local Investment in Natural Capital (LINC) programme led by WMCA is proceeding at pace and featured strongly at the recent West Midlands Natural Environment Summit.
A consortium led by Finance Earth was appointed to support the programme with the aim of unlocking finance for nature recovery at scale across the region. As part of the team, Accelar’s primary focus has been to work with WMCA, its partners and stakeholders to develop, analyse and support the pipeline of natural capital projects around the West Midlands.
As highlighted in the West Midlands LINC brochure, over 200 projects covering a combined area of 43,000ha are already included in this pipeline which have the potential to restore habitats whilst providing green and blue infrastructure to benefit local communities. The other members of the consortium are eftec and Sustainability West Midlands (SWM), Michelmores, Middlemarch and Slingshot.
The West Midlands is one of four pioneering areas across England, and the only predominantly urban region, to be delivering a LINC programme for Defra. They are each exploring and demonstrating the potential for natural capital investment whilst building the local capacity and ecosystem markets.
The West Midlands LINC programme aligns with and supports the WMCA’s work to deliver its Natural Environment Plan and both were front and centre at the West Midlands Natural Environment Summit on 18 October at Conference Aston in Birmingham.
Pictured above are Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands and WMCA chair, Dr Delia Garratt, chief executive at Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust and Nature Minister Mary Creagh at the first West Midlands Natural Environment Summit
The press release associated with the summit quotes West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker: “My focus is on securing new funding that will directly support nature projects, improving the quality of life for people across our region. We’re aiming to bring in private sector investment to create more green spaces, restore habitats, and plant thousands of trees, especially in areas that need them most. These initiatives will help make our communities greener, healthier, and more vibrant, ensuring the benefits are felt now and for future generations.”. Sessions at the summit helped to continue the active dialogue on nature finance and these were supported by the Finance Earth team and Accelar’s Michael Smith and Cara Clarke.
The WMCA website has an array of resources explaining its wide-ranging activities relating to the natural environment which can be found here: https://www.wmca.org.uk/what-we-do/environment-energy/natural-environment/