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20th October 2020 saw The Future Economy Network celebrate EU Green Week’s focus on biodiversity and nature by running an engaging online event on “The Value of Nature to Business”. The event was attended by attentive early-risers all passionate about nature and sustainable business. All of our speakers, Better Food, Wessex Water, 9Trees and The Converging World, were Network members. Attendees enjoyed some pre-seminar networking in small break out groups before the event began.
Katherine Piper, Director of The Future Economy Network, welcomed attendees, highlighting the benefits of joining the Network and also sharing updates about The Future Economy Network’s Carbon Neutral Hub in Bristol, Future Leap. Katherine also briefly ran through the plans for The Festival of Sustainable Business.
Phil Haughton, Founder of Better Food, kicked off the seminars with a beautiful introduction to the event topic by reading out an extract from his recently launched book, "Food for Thought" – a self-published book that celebrates the joy of eating well and living better. Phil spoke about human’s ability to alienate themselves from each other, but when we feel more in tune with nature we are all the same. Pre-business, he suggested that we had a holistic way of transacting before war and factions began to traumatise people, leading to business in separation to nature. Phil emphasised that now is the time to change; nature’s incredible call and response system is self-balancing. In DNA terms, humans are no more than outcrops of nature. He then links this knowledge to suggest that everyone in an organisation should be engaged and heard; by listening to nature and being more our natural self, everyone will feel trusted and safe. Phil wrapped up his presentation by talking about his book and asked that companies “bring their heart to the table”.
Next up, we welcomed David Baxter, Director of Sales and Operations at EnTrade (Wessex Water) who spoke about using Catchment Markets to build bigger nature recovery networks. He suggested that the reality of financing nature in the UK means carbon credits alone will not be enough to drive nature’s recovery. For example, if a farmer plants trees on his land instead of using it as farmland, woodland grants and carbon credits are still less income than farmland. David showed Wessex Water images of water industry asset based, catchment based, and nature based solutions. He went on to show how catchment markets buy and sell more than just carbon; they can make a market out of water quality, biodiversity net gain and natural flood management – hereby in theory fixing the income problem for farmers. These opportunities to invest in nature need a market to work, and now that they are becoming easier to quantify, they are easier to use as tradeable assets. David then outlined the Broadway initiative, before showing a Bristol Avon catchment heat map, which outlined where nature solutions are more economically viable. He finished his presentation by explaining that they have plans in place to do this in Bristol Avon, Tone and Parrett, and Dorset Stour from 2021.
Next up, we invited Michelle Kent from 9Trees to speak on Nature Based Solutions (NBS). They highlighted that business models investing in nature are not compensated adequately, where all projects are funded through grants/charity work and delivered by volunteers. This immediately undermines the value of the conservation sector, where workers are highly skilled but rarely compensated correctly. Therefore, Michelle emphasised the importance of being entirely honest with NBS, where understanding the ecological context is key to what is being delivered and why. Where nature and people are prioritised in different orders, nature should be put as the first priority (people will always benefit where nature is put first, but if people are put first nature will not necessarily benefit). They showed an example of an artist’s drawing of Regent Street in London, where they suggested nice-looking trees that might bring some cooling to the street for walkers. However, these trees have no connection with each other, no food source, and no flora/fauna connections. Moreover, the project will cost a lot of money for minimal benefits seen – it is not a nature based solution. Michelle gave other examples of projects where people were put before nature, before showing a successful example of nature being put before people (a SuDS system in Chorley). Next was some explanation of how 9Trees work with NBS, their future projects and how they look at management of trees in the long term. Michelle finished their presentation with a photo of an area of California decimated by wildfire, but where beavers had been allowed to flourish and created a greenbelt in the centre of the wildfire. Their final point was that we are not separate from nature, but a part of it – we can help manage it, but we cannot control it. It is not ours to control.
Last but certainly not least, we welcomed Molly Byrne from The Converging World, who create renewable energy via wind turbines in India. She spoke about the value of carbon, a controversial topic where the cost of carbon varies depending on the research done. Molly highlighted the steps that The Future Economy Network are taking to offset their activities, using the Social Cost of Carbon as their preferred reference. She emphasised the need for it to be seen as a carbon tax and not as a carbon market, otherwise companies will not be influenced into reducing their carbon in the first place. She outlined how the charity can help you put a value on carbon, in the tangible method of trees or the less tangible but fully certified method of carbon credits. She also spoke about “The forest the size of anywhere” (where you can offset your personal carbon, your carbon in relation to a space you use e.g. an office, or your carbon per person in a company). Molly spoke about their partners in India, in particular the Pitchandikulam forest as a fantastic example of a successful tree planting project.
During all discussions, the audience were invited to ask questions and take part in the conversation throughout. Then Network members Future Leap, Garrett Creative, Go Climate Positive and Claric Legal Services gave a 60 second pitch. Everyone was then able to network in different groups using facilitated break out rooms, before the event finished. A huge thank you to the speakers and attendees of this event, without which our events calendar would not be possible.