The directors of strategy and policy at UK Infrastructure Bank outline case for investing in large-scale natural capital projects.

The word infrastructure commonly conjures up images of steel and skyscrapers, roads and railways, cranes and concrete… but increasingly it is being applied to a softer, greener landscape as we re-evaluate what we want to prioritise and protect in our living environment.

The UK Infrastructure Bank wants to demonstrate how these definitions can happily inhabit the same space and use its capital to grow the UK’s natural capital market.

Society and the economy depend on natural capital assets and services to function – including the carbon locked up by ecosystems, the provision of clean and reliable water supplies, and the biodiversity that underpins our food security.

Our natural capital is a form of infrastructure, comparable to engineered solutions to problems such as flood risk and greenhouse gas removals. Often underpinning economic growth, it can protect other infrastructure assets as well as delivering wider co-benefits, such as jobs.

However, our base of natural capital assets has been rapidly eroded over recent decades, and urgent investment is needed if the UK is to meet its net-zero targets, adapt to an already changing climate and secure future economic prosperity.

Read more