Repricing Nature.
The Natural Capital Bank is reclassifying nature as critical infrastructure. We do this by covenanting landscapes, engineering ecosystems and architecting the financial rails needed to grow a mainstream nature marketplace. Our customers are able to bank the value of nature through catchment-scale origination and Real World Asset Tokenisation for statutory environmental credits. We are in the process of becoming a Responsible BodyResponsible Body — an organisation designated by the Secretary of State under the Environment Act 2021 as fit to hold conservation covenants: legally binding agreements with landowners that secure land’s conservation features, bind successors in title, and give the body the duty to monitor the land and the standing to enforce the covenant for its full term. whose edge is offering a tech-enabled Natural Capital Asset Management and Exchange platform designed to manufacture integrity, liquidity, traceability and compliance within a statutory market.
The investment materials
Five documents · click to openThe core team
Purpose- and impact-driven leadership with a network to match
John is a veteran farmer-turned green industrialist with 40+ years in agriculture, land management and regenerative systems. He leads strategy, investor relations and statutory partnerships. He created the ESaaS model from first principles for farmers in Nutrient Vulnerable Zones to adopt nature-based solutions. He validates HMLR conservation covenants across the company’s credit pool and leads the InnovateUK grant validating the ESaaS field protocol. John originated ROWE (Return of Wealth for Earth), NCB’s metric for regenerating ecosystems, and leads engagement with statutory buyers, planning authorities and farmer networks.
Marcus leads technical delivery across the full stack, where agronomy meets software. A practicing industrial hempologist and ecosystems software engineer, he designed the 3D riparian buffer crop system — the multi-layer planting and spatial zonation on which the stacking case rests — and architected the exchange platform that carries it to market. He owns IP development across the trade-secret yield methodology, the NCBRegistry smart contracts and the database rights, with a remit running from the cultivation licence in the field to on-chain provenance and the data handling that ties every measurement to an auditable credit.
Emma's role sits at the intersection of ecology, geospatial innovation and governance — designing and maintaining NCB's Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) framework in alignment with the BSI Nature Investment Standards (BSI Flex 701–705), so that every credit NCB originates carries an auditable evidence trail, from ecological change on the ground to market-ready unit on the NCX ledger. She owns the field and laboratory protocols behind that trail — the paired up- and downstream water monitoring, the soil and plant-tissue sampling analysed to ISO standards by Live Lab, and the baseline-to-verification sequence the ADOPT trial follows — and assembles the evidence pack on which Natural England accreditation and Defra-metric BNG assessment will turn.
Kelly brings senior commercial marketing expertise to the business, leading brand strategy, market positioning and investor communications. Her remit covers digital presence, content strategy, the investor prospectus communications layer and the market development approach for NCX brokerage licensing and credit sales. She translates a technical proposition into language each audience acts on — landowners weighing a covenant, planning authorities assessing compliance, and investors assessing the round. As the brokerage network scales, she owns the partner-facing materials and onboarding that turn licence holders into an active distribution channel.
Jack structures and secures debt and payment solutions for corporate and private clients in complex, cross-border and time-sensitive situations, working alongside lenders, family offices and credit funds. Co-founder of EMI Treasury, helping EMIs and payment institutions optimise safeguarded funds through regulated money-market structures, he owns capital structuring and financial strategy across the group — the SEIS/EIS round mechanics and the HMRC advance-assurance process, the seed-to-Series A capital pathway, and the financial controls beneath the three revenue lines. As the exchange scales, his remit extends to treasury discipline over credit-sale proceeds, fee flows and the settlement arrangements statutory buyers will expect.
The investment summary
Seed round · at a glanceThe offer
After SEIS/EIS income-tax relief the illustrative net cost would be ~£300k and the illustrative maximum downside ~£165k if advance assurance is granted and the investor qualifies — without relief the net cost and maximum loss are the full £500,000. EBITDA-positive in Year 3, on a path to a ~£17m revenue run-rate by Year 5.
Use of funds
Nature's Calling.
Whether you're weighing up the investment or want to talk through the model in person, we'd love to hear from you!
Murrells End,
Redmarley,
Forest of Dean,
Gloucestershire,
United Kingdom,
GL19 3LR
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Citations & Bibliography
1. The core premise: conventional buffer strips are not enough
Supports: "Conventional grass buffer strips become saturated over time, eventually releasing stored nutrients back into watercourses."
- Stutter, M.I., Chardon, W.J. & Kronvang, B. (2012). Riparian buffer strips as a multifunctional management tool in agricultural landscapes: introduction to the special collection. Journal of Environmental Quality, 41(2), 297–303. DOI: 10.2134/jeq2011.0439 The foundational critique. Argues that narrow, unmanaged, mandatory grass buffers fail to maximise the ecosystem goods and services riparian zones could deliver.
- Roberts, W.M., Stutter, M.I. & Haygarth, P.M. (2012). Phosphorus retention and remobilization in vegetated buffer strips: a review. Journal of Environmental Quality, 41(2), 389–399. DOI: 10.2134/jeq2010.0543 Directly evidences the remobilisation problem: buffer strips reduce particulate P transfer, but retention of dissolved P is far weaker — and in some documented cases buffer strips have increased dissolved P delivery to surface waters.
- Hoffmann, C.C., Kjaergaard, C., Uusi-Kämppä, J., Hansen, H.C.B. & Kronvang, B. (2009). Phosphorus retention in riparian buffers: review of their efficiency. Journal of Environmental Quality, 38(5), 1942–1955. DOI: 10.2134/jeq2008.0087 Key quantitative reference. Plant uptake temporarily immobilises up to ~15 kg P/ha/yr; dissolved P retention is often below 0.5 kg P/ha/yr; and several studies record buffers releasing up to 8 kg P/ha/yr. This is the evidence that unharvested buffers store rather than remove.
The saturation question is not settled. Habibiandehkordi et al. (2019, J. Environ. Qual. 48, 314–321, DOI 10.2134/jeq2018.04.0129) found vegetated buffer strip soils had greater P sorption capacity and a lower degree of P saturation than adjacent field soils, and had not saturated even after 57 years.
We cite this deliberately, because it cuts against our own premise. The honest position is that buffer performance is highly site-specific — depending on hydrological flow path, soil type, and the balance of particulate versus dissolved P. That variability is precisely the argument for a multi-catchment, three-soil-type field trial with a control grass buffer at every site.
2. Harvestable, multifunctional buffers — the direct scientific basis for 3D buffer cropping
Supports: "Transforming passive buffer strips into three-dimensional, harvestable living biofilters."
- Stutter, M., Kronvang, B., Ó hUallacháin, D. & Rozemeijer, J. (2019). Current insights into the effectiveness of riparian management, attainment of multiple benefits, and potential technical enhancements. Journal of Environmental Quality, 48(2), 236–247. DOI: 10.2134/jeq2019.01.0020 The single most important reference for this project. Explicitly addresses saturated and enhanced buffer strips, edge-of-field nutrient retention technologies, and — critically — the reuse of nutrients and biomass harvested from buffer strips. This is the peer-reviewed foundation on which 3D buffer cropping is built.
- Mander, Ü., Hayakawa, Y. & Kuusemets, V. (2005). Purification processes, ecological functions, planning and design of riparian buffer zones in agricultural watersheds. Ecological Engineering, 24(5), 421–432. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoleng.2005.01.015 Multi-layered buffer zones combining grassland, wet meadow and alder woodland achieved substantially higher N and P retention than single-layer strips — the evidence for the multi-storey "3D" structure.
- Zak, D., Stutter, M., Jensen, H.S. et al. (2019). An assessment of the multifunctionality of integrated buffer zones in Northwestern Europe. Journal of Environmental Quality, 48(2), 362–375. DOI: 10.2134/jeq2018.05.0216 Assessment of integrated (engineered) buffer zones delivering multiple services simultaneously — the closest existing analogue to the ESaaS multi-service model.
- Prade, T., Svensson, S.-E., Andersson, A. & Mattsson, J.E. (2011). Biomass and energy yield of industrial hemp grown for biogas and solid fuel. Biomass and Bioenergy, 35(7), 3040–3049. DOI: 10.1016/j.biombioe.2011.04.006 Establishes hemp biomass and energy yields for biogas and solid fuel end-uses — relevant to WP6 offtake routes.
3. Hemp nutrient uptake — the agronomic figures
Supports: the N and P uptake ranges shown on the PNCO₂ panel.
- Roozeboom, K.L., Griffin, J.J. & Ruiz Diaz, D.A. (2025). Nutrient uptake and partitioning of industrial hemp in the central Great Plains. Across seven environments and a biomass range of 1.7–9.8 Mg/ha, peak macronutrient uptake reached 180 kg N/ha and 22 kg P/ha. Predicted uptake ranges: 54–180 kg N/ha and 7–22 kg P/ha.
- Tang, K. et al. (2022). Industrial hemp response to nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilisation (multi-site, China). Reported uptake of 83–237 kg N/ha and 8–37 kg P/ha, varying by site and fertiliser rate, with biomass yields to 13 Mg/ha.
- Aubin, M.-P., Seguin, P., Vanasse, A. et al. (2015). Industrial hemp response to nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilization. Crop, Forage & Turfgrass Management, 1(1). DOI: 10.2134/cftm2015.0159
- Vera, C.L., Malhi, S.S., Raney, J.P. & Wang, Z.H. (2010). The effect of N and P fertilization on growth, seed yield and quality of industrial hemp in the Parkland region of Saskatchewan. Canadian Journal of Plant Science, 90(2), 179–184. DOI: 10.4141/CJPS09101
4. Carbon
Supports: the CO₂ drawdown range shown on the PNCO₂ panel.
- Shah, D.U. Centre for Natural Material Innovation, University of Cambridge. Cited estimate: industrial hemp absorbs 8–15 tonnes CO₂ per hectare of cultivation, against 2–6 t CO₂/ha/yr for typical forestry.
- British Hemp Alliance (2025). Carbon sequestration potential of hemp. britishhempalliance.co.uk Breaks the figure down: 8–12 t CO₂/ha/yr above-ground biomass; 1–3 t CO₂/ha/yr soil carbon; 2–5 t CO₂/ha additional storage over the lifespan of hemp-derived materials. Total in the order of 10–15 t CO₂/ha annually.
- Ip, K. & Miller, A. (2012). Life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of hemp–lime wall constructions in the UK. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 69, 1–9. DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2012.09.001 The durable-storage evidence: a hemp-lime wall was found to be net carbon-negative across its full life cycle. This is the pathway by which biomass carbon becomes durable rather than transient.
The widely-circulated "22 tonnes CO₂/ha" figure originates in advocacy submissions, not peer-reviewed work. The credible published range is 8–15 t CO₂/ha, and that is the range we use.
More important: biomass uptake is gross uptake, not sequestration. Carbon in hemp that is anaerobically digested or burned is re-released. Only carbon locked into long-lived products — hempcrete, bast fibre in construction — constitutes durable removal, and every credible carbon standard rejects gross-uptake claims. The trial measures gross uptake and tracks the durable fraction through to end-use. Only the durable fraction is creditable.
5. Nutrient neutrality, credit markets and policy
Supports: the market-context pricing panel and the credit framework.
- POST (Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology) (2026). Changes to nutrient neutrality in England. POSTnote 0755. post.parliament.uk Confirms the definitional point on which the entire credit calculation rests: a credit is the mitigation equivalent of 1 kg of N or P per year, and mitigation must be secured in perpetuity. Also confirms that Natural England accredits mitigation measures and has set out which have sufficient mitigation certainty — harvest-based buffer cropping is not yet among them.
- Natural England. Nutrient neutrality: guidance and catchment nutrient budget calculators. Referenced for methodology and catchment designation.
- Stour Environmental Credits. Published credit pricing. stourenvironmentalcredits.co.uk Transparent published rates: permanent phosphorus at £35,000+VAT per kg; permanent nitrogen at £2,350+VAT per kg. These are per kg per year, in perpetuity — the basis for the market panel above.
- Defra. Enabling a Natural Capital Approach (ENCA): guidance and databook. ENCA is the government's natural capital valuation guidance. It is not a credit standard, and confers no compliance status. We cite it for valuation methodology only.
- Defra / Natural England. Statutory Biodiversity Metric and Biodiversity Net Gain guidance (Environment Act 2021, Schedule 7A TCPA 1990). The BNG unit figure is indicative and will be confirmed by running the statutory metric on each trial plot. BNG requires habitat secured for 30 years by S106 or conservation covenant.
- Environment Act 2021 (c.30). legislation.gov.uk
- Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 (SI 2017/1012) — the legal basis for nutrient neutrality obligations.
No compounded ecosystem-service credit standard currently exists in the UK. Some combinations of credits can be stacked under existing guidance; others cannot, and Defra and Natural England guidance is deliberately restrictive about selling the same ecological enhancement twice.
The PNCO₂ methodology is being developed to establish where that line falls — which services can be compounded from one plot without double-counting, and which must be excluded. It is an output of this trial, not a precondition of it.
6. Programme and licensing
- Innovate UK / Defra. Farming Innovation Programme — ADOPT Fund. iuk-business-connect.org.uk/programme/adopt ADOPT is one of three funds within Defra's Farming Innovation Programme, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK. It supports collaborative, farmer-led on-farm trials. This project’s grant is secured — the offer letter is signed.
- Home Office. Industrial hemp licensing (low-THC cannabis cultivation licence). Licences are held and in place for the trial sites.
7. Material end-use and durable storage pathways
Supports: the durable-fraction argument — the routes by which harvested biomass becomes a long-lived product rather than a transient carbon store.
- Zhang, et al. A green route to UV-curable resins: acrylation and application of hemp seed oil in 3D printing. European Polymer Journal (2025). sciencedirect.com Demonstrates a bio-based route from hemp seed oil to UV-curable resin for additive manufacturing — evidence that the seed fraction, not only the bast fibre and shiv, has a durable materials pathway. Relevant to whole-crop utilisation and to the durable fraction of biomass carbon.
- Journal of Applied Polymer Science. Hemp fibre-reinforced polymer composites. Wiley. DOI: 10.1002/app.32314 Peer-reviewed characterisation of hemp fibre in polymer composite applications, supporting the case for bast fibre as a structural input to long-lived manufactured products.
- STEICO. Blow-in insulation — product and system data. steico.com A commercially available natural-fibre insulation system, cited as the reference product class for the insulation end-use route. Illustrates an existing industrial off-take channel for plant-fibre biomass in the construction sector.
8. Market failure and the built environment
Supports: the nutrient-stranded housing figures and the per-square-metre stored-carbon figure cited in the investor materials.
- Home Builders Federation (2023). Nutrient Neutrality — Solution Finding Report (HBF Update, March 2023). hbf.co.uk Industry assessment of housing delivery blocked by nutrient neutrality — the source for the 100,000+ nutrient-stranded homes, the ~£30bn economic loss and the ~£3bn re-work estimate.
- Hemspan (2025). BioHaus — Climate Positive Living. hemspan.com Manufacturer specification for hemp-based building systems — the source for the 0.1 tCO₂e/m² (100 kg CO₂e/m²) of permanent carbon storage per built square metre.
Only carbon locked into long-lived products counts as durable removal. These references establish that credible, commercially proven end-use routes exist across all three crop fractions — seed oil to resin, bast fibre to composite, and shiv or fibre to building insulation. They evidence the pathway, not the volumes. The durable fraction actually achieved will be measured and tracked through to end-use by the trial.
9. Policy and regulatory instruments for buffer strips
Supports: the Defra evidence and the French regulatory context cited in this prospectus.
- Defra. 3D Buffer Strips: Designed to deliver more for the environment — summary. gov.uk Defra-commissioned evidence: wooded and engineered buffers scored the highest — and grass vegetated buffers the lowest — for diffuse pollution control, carbon retention, and geomorphic and flood management benefits. The evidential basis for the Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier action CSW21.
- Légifrance. BCAE 4 — Article LEGIARTI000051776951 (CAP conditionality). legifrance.gouv.fr Farmers claiming CAP aid must keep a permanent vegetated buffer along mapped “cours d’eau BCAE 4” watercourses.
- Légifrance (2017). Arrêté du 4 mai 2017 (AGRG1632554A) — zones non traitées (ZNT). legifrance.gouv.fr Pesticide law (distinct from CAP): a default no-spray strip of at least 5 m beside “points d’eau”, with buffer depths of 20, 50 or even 100 m required in specified cases.
10. How to read the figures in this prospectus
Three categories, and we distinguish between them everywhere:
Published evidence — drawn from the sources above, cited, and attributable.
Indicative ranges — figures from the published literature, presented as expectations to be tested on UK riparian soils. These are not results.
Open questions — quantities that do not currently exist in the UK literature, and which this trial is designed to produce. Chief among them: creditable nutrient export reduction per hectare of harvestable 3D riparian buffer. No published UK figure exists. Producing it, verifying it independently, and publishing the methodology open-source is what this project is for.
Corrections, challenges and additional references are welcomed — please write to board@naturalcapitalbank.co.uk. This section will be updated as the trial generates verified data.
Frequently Asked Questions
The round
- What exactly is on offer?
- 227,273 new ordinary shares at £2.20 each for £500,000 — 16.67% of the company fully diluted, at a £3.0m post-money valuation. The round is split £250k SEIS and £250k EIS, structured to complete the SEIS tranche first. Full terms are in Business Plan §9.
- Is the SEIS/EIS tax relief guaranteed?
- No. Advance assurance is pending with HMRC, and relief also depends on the shares remaining qualifying and on each investor’s own tax position. The figures shown in these documents (illustrative net cost ~£300k; illustrative maximum downside ~£165k) apply only if relief is granted and claimed — without it, the full £500,000 is at risk. See Business Plan 9.3.
- What is the money actually spent on?
- 55% on the platform build (£275k), 25% on origination and covenant execution (£125k), 10% on verification and standards (£50k) and 10% held as a regulatory-change contingency (£50k) — alongside the £100k secured ADOPT grant programme, giving roughly £600k of Year 1 resource.
- When could I see a return?
- This is a pre-revenue seed investment: no dividends are planned and any return depends on a future exit. Illustratively, after the planned Series A the seed position holds ~13.33%; at 6× Year 5 EBITDA (a £68m enterprise value) that returns ~£9.1m to seed investors (18.2×), and break-even is an exit of just £3.8m. These are outcomes if the plan is delivered — not expected value.
The model
- Where does revenue actually come from?
- Three lines: an origination fee of c.10% of credit value, recognised as credits sell through into statutory demand; recurring service fees of £250 per holding plus £61 per acre, per year, for MRV, registry and covenant administration; and broker licences at £5,000 per licence per year. Origination dominates as the covenanted base scales.
- Why would a farmer commit land for thirty years?
- The buffer occupies only the riparian margin — the rest of the field farms on unaffected — and the blended-base case nets the landowner ~£181,876 per acre over the covenant, roughly 37× the arable margin on the same ground. Even at conservative floor prices the multiple is ~25×. That margin is why origination at scale is credible.
- Are the credit prices real or hoped-for?
- Benchmarked to published, transparent rates: Stour Environmental Credits publishes £35,000/kg for permanent phosphorus and £2,350/kg for nitrogen, and BNG evidence is segmented — commodity units £20k–£42k, watercourse/high-distinctiveness units £125k–£145k, the class this habitat targets. The plan models three pricing cases and asks investors to underwrite the discounted case, at 50% sell-through.
The risks
- What is the single biggest risk?
- Natural England has not yet accredited harvest-based buffer cropping as a nutrient-mitigation measure, so the two nutrient streams cannot be sold as statutory mitigation until it does. The ADOPT trial’s paired up- and downstream monitoring exists precisely to produce that evidence — and ~48% of the per-acre stack (biodiversity) does not depend on it. The full register is in Business Plan §10.
- What if planning reform replaces private credits?
- The Nature Restoration Fund could let developers pay a levy instead of buying private nutrient credits. Biodiversity Net Gain — ~61% of the blended-base landowner case — sits outside the NRF, and NCB can act as a delivery partner to the very funds that would replace the private market.
- Can I lose my entire investment?
- Yes. This is a high-risk, illiquid, pre-revenue investment: capital is at risk, returns are not guaranteed, and you should not invest money you cannot afford to lose. SEIS/EIS reliefs, if granted and claimed, reduce but do not remove that risk.
Proof & ownership
- What is proven today, and what is still assumption?
- In the ground: Season 1 is established across three catchments under the 22-month InnovateUK ADOPT trial, with the grant offer letter signed, the cultivation licence held and 15 letters of intent across planning authorities, farmers, developers and partners. Still to prove: verified creditable nutrient-export reduction per hectare (no UK figure exists — producing it is the trial’s purpose) and Natural England accreditation.
- Who owns the platform and the IP?
- The registry code — APIs and data schemas, audit-trail logic, workflows, matching and registry — is open source and deployable by any operator. NCB retains proprietary rights in its brand (Natural Capital Bank & Exchange®, a registered trade mark licensed to the group), its MRV and methodologies data, its covenants and legal structures, its credit inventory and the commercially hosted market.
- What are the next steps?
- Read the Business Plan and Teaser in this portal, then use the meeting scheduler on this page to book a conversation with the board. Subscription documents follow from there. Questions in the meantime: board@naturalcapitalbank.co.uk.
Glossary & Definitions
Markets & units
- “Bank” — in this context
- “Bank” does not mean a financial institution that holds money or makes loans. It is used in the environmental sense of a store or reserve of ecological value — as in a habitat bank or a seed bank.
- Natural capital
- The stock of natural assets — soil, water, air, habitats and living organisms — from which people derive benefits. Treating it as capital means measuring its condition and the flow of services it provides.
- Ecosystem services
- The benefits that flow from natural capital, such as clean water, flood attenuation, pollination, carbon storage and healthy soils.
- Ecosystems as a Service (ESaaS)
- The delivery of measurable ecosystem services as a contracted, paid service — the farmer is remunerated for verified environmental outcomes rather than for commodity yield alone.
- Environmental credit
- A tradeable unit representing a verified, quantified environmental outcome — for example one kilogram of nutrient mitigation per year, or one biodiversity unit — which a developer can use to discharge a statutory obligation.
- Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG)
- The statutory requirement in England for most new development to deliver a measurable net increase in biodiversity, calculated using the statutory biodiversity metric and secured for at least 30 years.
- Nutrient neutrality
- The requirement that new development in affected catchments must not add to nutrient loading in protected water bodies, obliging developers to secure offsetting nutrient mitigation before consent.
- Phosphate (P) and nitrate (N) credits
- Units of nutrient mitigation, each representing the removal or avoidance of one kilogram of the nutrient per year, secured in perpetuity within the relevant catchment.
- PNCO₂
- The Company's compound unit concept, bundling phosphate, nitrate, carbon and biodiversity outcomes generated by a single intervention, subject to the stacking rules established by the trial.
- Stacking
- Selling more than one type of credit from the same parcel of land. Permitted only where the underlying ecological outcomes are genuinely distinct, and never by counting the same enhancement twice.
- Additionality
- The principle that a credit may only be issued for an outcome that would not have happened anyway under business as usual or existing legal obligation.
Land, law & governance
- Conservation covenant
- A long-term, legally binding agreement under the Environment Act 2021 between a landowner and a Responsible Body, securing conservation outcomes on the land and binding subsequent owners.
- Responsible Body
- An organisation designated by the Secretary of State as fit to hold conservation covenants, with the duty to monitor the land and the standing to enforce the covenant for its full term.
- Section 106 agreement
- A planning obligation entered into between a developer and a local planning authority, commonly used to secure environmental mitigation as a condition of consent.
- Local Planning Authority (LPA)
- The council body responsible for determining planning applications and for securing the environmental obligations attached to them.
- Environmental Delivery Plan (EDP)
- A strategic plan under which a designated body delivers environmental mitigation at scale on behalf of multiple developments within a defined area.
- Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP)
- Large-scale infrastructure consented through a national regime rather than by a local planning authority, and progressively subject to biodiversity requirements.
Land management & science
- Bioregionalism
- An approach to organising economic and ecological activity around the natural boundaries of a place — a catchment, watershed or biogeographic region — rather than administrative borders. Value generated within the bioregion is measured, circulated and reinvested locally, so that ecological recovery and economic development reinforce one another.
- Catchment
- The area of land from which rainfall drains into a single river system. Nutrient obligations are catchment-bound, so mitigation must be delivered within the same catchment as the impact.
- Riparian buffer
- A vegetated strip alongside a watercourse that intercepts run-off and sediment before it reaches the water, while providing habitat along the bank.
- 3D buffer crop
- A multi-layer riparian buffer combining permanent strata nearest the water with annually harvested strata further out, designed so habitat and harvest occupy distinct zones.
- Diffuse pollution
- Pollution reaching water from widespread sources such as agricultural run-off, rather than from a single identifiable discharge point.
- Regenerative agriculture
- Farming practices that rebuild soil health, water retention and biodiversity while maintaining productive output.
- Sequestration
- The capture and storage of atmospheric carbon. Only carbon held in long-lived stores counts as durable removal; carbon in biomass that is burned or decomposed returns to the atmosphere.
- Durable fraction
- The proportion of captured carbon that ends up locked into long-lived products such as construction materials, and which alone is creditable as removal.
- Baselining
- Establishing the measured starting condition of a site before intervention, against which subsequent change is assessed.
- MRV (Measurement, Reporting and Verification)
- The framework of protocols by which environmental outcomes are measured, documented and independently verified so that a credit carries an auditable evidence trail.
Platform & finance
- Open source
- The exchange software is open source: the code for registration, issuance, transfer and retirement is publicly licensed. Credit ownership, pricing, land rights and scientific protocols remain controlled by the operator and its counterparties.
- Real World Asset (RWA) tokenisation
- Representing a verified physical or legal asset as a digital token on a ledger, so that ownership, provenance and transfer can be recorded and settled transparently.
- Registry
- The authoritative record of which credits exist, who holds them, and when they have been retired against an obligation.
- Retirement
- The permanent cancellation of a credit once it has been used to discharge an obligation, preventing it from being sold or counted again.
- Provenance
- The traceable history of a credit, from the parcel of land and measurement that generated it through to its retirement.
- Origination
- The process of bringing land under agreement and creating verified credit supply from it.
- Offtake
- A commitment from a buyer to purchase credits, typically agreed in advance of delivery.
- Brokerage licence
- A licence permitting a third party, such as a land agent or planning authority, to transact credits on the exchange.
- Knowledge Intensive Company (KIC)
- An HMRC status for companies carrying out significant research and development, which raises the investment limits available under the EIS scheme.
- SEIS / EIS
- UK government venture capital schemes offering income and capital gains tax reliefs to individual investors in qualifying early-stage companies. Reliefs depend on individual circumstances and are not guaranteed.
Definitions are provided for orientation only and are not legal advice. Statutory terms carry the meaning given in the relevant legislation and guidance, which may change.