Local Nature Recovery Strategies

We worked with Defra and Natural England to deliver 3 of the 5 Local Nature Recovery Strategy Pilots in 2021. We then used the same approach in collaboration with Anglian Water to develop a plan for Lincolnshire which underpinned the design process of a major reservoir. As a result we are uniquely well positioned to create an LNRS for your county which integrates seamlessly with biodiversity net gain.

Our SCP approach combines two things, a transparent and inclusive social process and a spatial prioritisation analysis. We put stakeholders at the heart of strategy development and help them contribute to decision making in a range of ways, ensuring broad ownership of the outputs. Unlike other approaches, our spatial prioritisations are bespoke, allowing us to transparently base the analysis directly on the stakeholder input. This maximises support and ensures that the outputs are highly resilient to challenge.

A key strength of our spatial prioritisation analyses is that they consider cost, ensuring that the strategy represents the most cost effective solutions. This ensures that your county maximises the impact of available resources. In addition, this means that the LNRS inherently presents a strong business case for natural capital action, allowing you to effectively attract and negotiate investment in your area.

Biodiversity Net Gain

We have automated Defra's Biodiversity Metric using the best available data and can instantly tell you the likely biodiversity net gain implications of any potential development footprint in England. In addition, we can use the same analysis to identify opportunities for habitat restoration or establishment. We are also able to support this by indicating alignment with Local Nature Recovery Strategies as they emerge.

These three services combined can support you in making a broad range of decisions. For example, if your organisation is considering multiple potential sites for either development or natural capital action, we can rapidly provide you with the likely regulatory and BNG implications. Our decision scientists can then work with you to integrate this information into your decision making process in a robust and pragmatic way.

Natural Capital Investment

Our SCP approach identifies how to act to restore nature in the most cost effective way, making it inherently well positioned to guide natural capital investment. We can work with you to create a bespoke analysis using your ambitions, targets, budgets and cost predictions. Once created, the analyses can be rapidly rerun as your investment process proceeds, ensuiring that you are always using the most up to date information to identify priorities and inform decisions.

Where we have developed a local nature recovery strategy, we can reuse the analysis to guide natural capital investment rather than creating a new one from scratch. This ensures that investment is aligned with the views of local stakeholders and the ambitions of local government.

Water Resource Management

We have worked closely with the water sector since our inception. Our SCP approach was designed through close collaboration with Water Resources East, we provided Anglian Water Services and Affinity Water Services with strategic development support and played a key role in the Water for Tomorrow project in Eastern England.

Through this work we have established an in-depth understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the water sector, making us uniquely well placed to provide support on the strategic integration with natural capital.

Guiding Delivery Partners

One of the key strengths of SCP is that it identifies the relative importance of an action in any given location. This powerful resource can be used to directly guide delivery partners by helping them decide where and how to act in order to deliver the most impact.

This could be at the farm level; we can identify the possible actions on an individuals holding and indicate their relative importance. Alternatively we can provide insights across multiple sites, allowing clients with a significant estate to understand the potential of their land.

The ability to link the local to the regional allows clients to act at a strategic level, but deliver in collaboration with many on-the-ground partners. This cross resolution coordination is critical for acting for nature at scale.

Supporting Local Action

Nature restoration ultimately has to happen at the local level, making it essential that regional plans can directly provide practical guidance. We can use our SCP plans to produce reports which help local actors understand which actions are possible in their area. These can be used to ensure that a local nature recovery strategy directly supports parish councils or catchment based partnerships.

It is also possible to automate this service, allowing a county to provide instant support and guidance to a broad range of actors. This ease of access can play a critical role in ensuring the coordination of these important strategies.