Chair: Paul Cottington, RSPB

Link: Daisy Agidi, Policy Officer

Update from the Group

The Environmental Markets Group brings together Wildlife and Countryside Link members with expertise in nature finance, environmental markets, natural capital and nature recovery. The group works to shape policy that supports high-integrity environmental markets, ensuring they deliver meaningful outcomes for nature, communities and the economy.

The group's key policy ask is to drive demand for investment in nature, moving away from fragmented, voluntary markets towards a credible, growing, compliance-based system that delivers against the UK's legally binding nature and climate targets.

The group has published a policy report, Reforming Environmental Markets: Making Them Work for Nature and Communities, which sets out proposals to move beyond reliance on voluntary corporate investment in nature and instead establish mandatory, regulated environmental markets. Its flagship recommendation is the creation of a Nature Recovery Obligation, requiring sectors with significant impacts on nature to contribute to its recovery through a regulated market framework. Read the full report (45-minute read).

More recently, the group has focused on developing policy proposals to strengthen the demand side of environmental markets. This includes hosting a demand-side strategy day to explore how pathways to regulation and how existing policy levers can create long-term, reliable demand for nature investment while supporting the delivery of national environmental targets. As well as a letter to DEFRA and DESNZ on the need to support governance.

Other work by the group includes:

Producing a discussion paper on stacking in environmental markets, exploring the tools, services and governance needed to support high-integrity nature markets.


Convening an Agricultural Taxation Roundtable to examine how fiscal policy can incentivise the delivery of environmental public goods during the agricultural transition.


Writing to Government on Digital Sequence Information (DSI), calling for a robust polluter pays approach to domestic nature recovery and international DSI financing as part of the revised Environmental Improvement Plan.


Submitting recommendations to the 2024 Comprehensive Spending Review, including proposals to strengthen public and private investment in nature recovery.


Contributing to the development of BSI Flex standards to improve confidence, consistency and integrity across emerging environmental markets.


The group continues to engage with Treasury to discuss planning, water and agriculture reforms and robust environmental standards that support the UK's nature recovery ambitions.

For further information, contact Daisy Agidi, Policy Officer at Link.

Last updated: July 2026