The UK will need to increase its investment in nature by at least £44bn and by as much as £97bn, by 2032, to meet its own environmental commitments.

That is according to a new report commissioned by the Green Finance Institute (GFI) and published today (12 October).

Entitled ‘The Finance Gap for UK Nature’, the report lays bare historic under-funding across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the UK’s overseas territories before assessing how much spending is planned in the coming years, from governments and the private and public sectors.

Financing aiming to improve water cleanliness and access; protect and restore biodiversity; reduce flood risk; improve resource efficiency; mitigate climate change; enhance biosecurity and to improve access to nature was accounting for. Also covered was finance allocated with the aim of furthering two or more of these causes.

Planned levels of financing are then compared with those believed sufficient to deliver the aims of the 25-Year Environment Plan for England and the equivalent for other countries.

Planned spending for 2022-2032, the report states, is currently up to £97bn short of the levels needed to deliver commitments from the UK Government and devolved governments. Even in the best-case scenario, an additional £44bn would be needed during the decade. The GFI has made a central estimate of £56bn.

The funding gap was found to be larger in England (£21-53bn) than the other nations assessed. It was smallest for the UK’s overseas territories (£200m-£1.4bn).

“Having identified the scale of investment needed, and where it is needed, we must now focus on unlocking barriers to the mobilisation of private finance into nature-positive projects and businesses right across the UK,” said the GFI’s chief executive Dr Rhian-Mari Thomas.

The Institute’s head of nature programmes Helen Avery added that it will be “looking to work with the UK finance sector in addition to other key stakeholders to identify the barriers to private capital for priority nature-positive outcomes, and to develop practical solutions to support the growth of investment in nature in the UK.”

Read the report and press release here.

The UN Environment Programme recently published a ‘State of Finance for Nature’ report.

If the world is to meet the climate change, biodiversity, and land degradation targets, it needs to close a USD 4.1 trillion financing gap in nature by 2050. The current investments in Nature-based solutions amount to USD 133 billion – most of which comes from public sources.