Crown Estate Flags Coastal Capital

Can financial markets help save and regenerate Britain's coastal natural capital?

JE via Artiphoria

Britain’s coasts are central to our national sense of identity, but too often are ill-served by political and market dynamics. Coastal are viewed as distant from the centres of power and under-invested in—while coastal waters are treated as out of sight, out of mind.

Indeed, I recall with some distress working with UK companies like ICI back in the Seventies and Eighties—at a time when they saw the country’s rapidly-moving estuaries and coastal waters and the country’s turbulent skies as a competitive resource, or set of sinks, into which they could discharge their effluents and emissions without having to pay the higher costs imposed on their landlocked continental neighbors.

Perhaps it’s no accident that ICI no longer exists, but some of the same mindsets and attitudes most certainly do. The atmosphere and oceans are still viewed as a suitable place to dump carbon at rates now threatening the stability of the global system.

Although I had visited marine research centres before, including ICI’s own Brixham Laboratory, my visit to the Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution in September 2003 not only kicked off my personal blog series but also opened my eyes to the implications of the climate emergency for the world’s deep currents. Few things I have learned have shocked me more profoundly.

Which is one key reason why I so welcome an announcement made this month in the House of Commons by the Crown Estate and others. Due to an unusual agreement between the Crown and the Government, the Crown Estate manages around half of the foreshore (the land between mean high and mean low water mark) around England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It also controls much of the seabed in the relevant countries, including Scotland via its Scottish arm.

The Crown Estate leases and licences tidal land and seabed for port and harbours infrastructure, moorings and marinas, and cables, pipelines and outfalls. It also leases land for aquaculture and other coastal development projects—including offshore wind farms. So it interfaces fairly directly with some of the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the country’s coastal and offshore environments.

As it happens, one linked issue I have long been interested in is the health of Britain’s seagrass meadows—with a personal visit planned to a seagrass reseeding event on the Isle of Wight later in the year, courtesy of WWF.

Now, in an interesting joint step forward, the UK is getting closer to establishing high-integrity marine natural capital markets to boost the protection and restoration of its marine and coastal ecosystems.

To this end, a new roadmap has been launched, setting out key recommendations and actions for implementation through to 2030. The roadmap is the product of a partnership between The Crown Estate, Blue Marine Foundation, Crown Estate Scotland, EsméeFairbairn Foundation, Finance Earth and Pollination.

A first-of-its-kind for the UK, ‘High-Integrity Marine Natural Capital Markets in the UK – A Roadmap for Action’ has been co-designed through a year-long process involving over 200 UK and international experts across academia, industry, finance, government and not-for-profits. It offers a pathway to delivering high-integrity marine natural capital markets which can provide much needed new sources of finance to protect, restore and sustainably manage marine and coastal ecosystems.

The seven recommendations call on a wide cross-section of stakeholders to address barriers in areas such as funding, target sites for restoration, long-term monitoring, data and evidence, and skills and knowledge to deliver marine natural capital projects at scale.

One conclusion is that natural capital markets can help leverage payments for ecosystem services—and unlock much-needed private finance where public and philanthropic forms of funding are often stretched.

Contrariwise, if poorly designed, these markets also pose potential risks, such as the danger of greenwashing, lack of community involvement and benefit, and short-lived or failed projects to protect and restore marine and coastal ecosystems, reducing investor confidence and deterring investment.

At the same time, the Crown Estate also released a report outlining learnings from the roll-out of the UK’s first Blue Carbon Accelerator Programme. Run by Bright Tide and supported by The Crown Estate, Hogan Lovells and EY, the Accelerator Programme helps to address the skills gap highlighted in the Natural Capital Markets Roadmap by supporting the maturation of entrepreneurs looking to lead natural capital projects across the UK.

So when I play with the idea of launching a Sustainability Catwalk for market innovators working on related challenges, this emerging cluster of activities has just rocketed up my evolving shortlist.