Reversing nature's decline is good for business
With the Bristol Avon Catchment Market, businesses now have a better way of meeting their environmental obligations and commitments by buying verified credits from local nature recovery projects.
We want to hear from organisations that are interested in understanding how the Bristol Avon Catchment Market can help them achieve their environmental goals. The
Expression of Interest process is quick, simple and non-binding.
What is the opportunity?
By participating in the Market, businesses can:
- Demonstrate leadership in driving nature's recovery
- Comply with regulatory and planning requirements
- Meet consumer and employee expectations for ethical, sustainable organisations
- Build resilient businesses equipped to manage a changing policy environment
The market can meet the requirements of large and small-scale environmental credit buyers.
The Bristol Avon Catchment Market helps businesses to meet their regulatory obligations and voluntary commitments to:
- improve local biodiversity
- reduce their carbon footprint
- improve water quality in the Bristol Avon Catchment
- reduce local flooding risks
The first two rounds of the Market was focused on credits for Biodiversity Gain. We will continue to expand the range of environmental services offered through the Market in future Market Rounds. If you have a particular requirement, please let us know through the Expression of Interest process and we can be in touch to discuss your specific needs.
Read the brochure for business and organisations
A market you can trust
Delivering real change
When you have made a decision to make your business sustainable, you want to know that you are making a real difference.
The Bristol Avon Catchment Market will provide that assurance by only supporting projects that:
- deliver strategic environmental benefits to the Bristol Avon catchment as identified by the Avon and the Wiltshire Wildlife Trusts; and also
- meet government endorsed accreditation standards.
A high-integrity process
You also want to be sure that you are participating in an independent and impartial process.
The Bristol Avon Catchment Market achieves this as it has been designed in collaboration with experts from Exeter University to ensure fair payments for both buyers and project suppliers, with any surplus shared equitably between participants.
Locking in long-term benefits
Nature’s recovery takes time. You want to be assured that funding today will be used for projects that deliver benefits for many years to come.
The Bristol Avon Catchment Market puts in place watertight contracts with project suppliers to ensure that the projects will be maintained throughout the lifetime of the project.
A market for ethical businesses
The Bristol Avon Catchment Market is open to Ethical Buyers that can demonstrate they are genuinely committed to supporting nature’s recovery.
In order to participate in the market, buyers need to demonstrate that:
- they are committed to improving their ecological footprint over time;
- that they intend to use the credits purchased through the market to drive genuine environmental improvements; and
- they will not resell credits outside the Bristol Avon Catchment Market without prior agreement with the Market Operator.
Buyers also need to attest that they don't participate in environmentally damaging or socially unacceptable activities.
Ensuring genuine environmental improvements
The Bristol Avon Catchment Market will not support the use of nature-based solutions as a mechanism to offset damaging practices where there are credible alternatives.
Depending on the types of environmental credits being purchased, the Bristol Avon Catchment Market has the following expectations of buyers:
CARBON
Buyers that are in the market for carbon credits should:
- have a public commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2040;
- be committed to developing and implementing a credible plan to achieve net zero emissions that follows (or is equivalent to) the guidance in the Science-based Targets Initiative (SBTi);
BIODIVERSITY AND NUTRIENT MITIGATION
Buyers that are in the market for biodiversity gain or nutrient mitigation credits to offset development impacts should:
- demonstrate that proposals are in an adopted or proposed Local Plan, or approved by the LPA, or pending approval subject to nutrient mitigation and biodiversity gain requirements that can be appropriately met through the Bristol Avon Catchment Market;
- demonstrate development will not result in the loss of irreplaceable habitat such as ancient woodland;
- confirm development is not resulting in the direct loss of land designated specifically for the purposes of nature conservation e.g. Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
Hear from key stakeholders
At the March 2024 High Integrity Nature Markets event, participants heard from credit buyers and also LPAs.
Get in touch
If you are interested in buying verified environmental credits from the market, then please submit a non-binding Expression of Interest so that we can work with you to understand how the Bristol Avon Catchment Market can meet your environmental credit needs.