Should Nature now be recognised as critical national infrastructure?

Over recent months, my work has naturally started to include more on nature. With the ISSB targeting an Exposure Draft on nature-related disclosure requirements by the Convention on Biological Diversity COP17 in October 2026, nature is increasingly being included in the mainstream sustainability reporting conversation.

But the more I look at nature, the more I think disclosure is only part of the story.

Nature is not just something organisations may need to report on. It is something the whole economy already depends on, and something we now need to focus on investing in.

Healthy ecosystems provide services that we often take for granted.

Provisioning services give us food, timber and freshwater. Regulating services help regulate climate, store carbon, manage water flows and protect against flooding. Supporting services underpin soil formation, nutrient cycling and habitat for biodiversity. Cultural services shape how we experience places, through recreation, wellbeing, heritage and sense of place.

If those systems are degraded, the consequences are very real. They show up in communities, supply chains, infrastructure, public and private finances, and the wider economy.

This is why the language of critical national infrastructure feels increasingly helpful.

The challenge, of course, is how we turn the tide on investing more in nature. Protecting, restoring and enhancing nature at the scale needed will require more than public funding alone. It will require significant private capital investment, supported by credible and viable mechanisms that can satisfy three conditions at once: healthy returns, acceptable risk, and scalable nature-based solution projects.

For institutional investors, nature investment needs to be a credible alternative alongside more familiar allocations such as bonds, equities and property. Its potential appeal is that the return drivers may be different: linked less to traditional market movements, and more to carbon credits, Biodiversity Net Gain units, habitat restoration and long-term natural capital value.

That does not make it risk-free. It means the risk model is different.

The Big Nature Impact Fund is one example of how this is starting to be tested in practice. It brings together public support, professional fund management and private investment to finance nature restoration across England. Its focus includes biodiverse woodland creation, peatland restoration and Biodiversity Net Gain habitat projects.

What makes the fund especially interesting is the structure around it. It is managed by Finance Earth, an FCA-authorised and regulated investment manager specialising in nature, climate and communities, and uses UK Government-backed first-loss capital to provide downside protection for private investors. This is being tested as a pioneering blended-finance structure for UK nature markets: public money is used deliberately to reduce risk, crowd in private capital and help nature-based solutions become investable at scale.

The fund reached its first close in May 2026 and is still fundraising towards its final target. That matters because this is not yet a mature, fully proven market. It is an early test of whether nature investment can deliver measurable nature outcomes alongside long-term, risk-adjusted financial returns.

The underlying projects also matter. The fund is expected to invest in nature-based solutions in England. These include biodiverse woodland creation, peatland restoration and Biodiversity Net Gain habitat projects.

Woodland and peatland projects are designed to generate verified carbon credits. Biodiversity Net Gain projects generate biodiversity units linked to legal requirements under England’s planning system. Those units are not simply short-term claims: the underlying habitat must be secured and managed for at least 30 years. These are different routes to making nature restoration investable, each with its own markets, rules and revenue mechanisms.

This distinction is important. A nature restoration fund is not the same thing as buying a carbon credit or purchasing a Biodiversity Net Gain unit. The fund is the investment structure. Carbon credits and biodiversity units are potential revenue streams from the underlying projects.

But this is still an emerging market where returns have yet to be fully tested. Nature investment depends on credible measurement, robust verification, long-term stewardship and confidence in the rules that support returns. Carbon credits and biodiversity units need to be backed by real nature outcomes, not just attractive claims, and if nature is to become investable at scale, trust will matter.

If nature is critical national infrastructure, then nature investment needs to be treated with the same seriousness as other forms of national infrastructure investment. That means long-term capital, credible governance, robust evidence and proper scrutiny of both risk and return.

The UK has taken a tentative but important step by using blended finance to bring public and private capital together for nature-based solutions. The real test will be what happens next: whether these structures can scale, whether they can deliver returns, and whether they can generate the nature outcomes they promise.

If they can, nature investment may start to move from the edge of the sustainability conversation and become part of the financial architecture of a more resilient economy.

Here is a link to The Big Nature Impact Fund