Tag: Highlands Rewilding

Pioneering Scottish rewilding project hits £1 million mark 

 ·         £1million raised in ongoing crowdfund for mass ownership of Highlands Rewilding 

·         Money raised comes from 622 investors, over 40% of whom are Scottish residents 

·         The for-profit rewilding company hopes to achieve 1,000 investors by 16 May 

Highlands Rewilding, a pioneering Scottish project focused on scaling nature recovery and community prosperity through rewilding, has secured £1 million through its crowdfunding campaign, three weeks before it is set to close on 16 May 2023. 

The company operates a frontier rewilding model that allows citizen rewilders to invest from between £50 to £200,000 to co-own rewilding land, earning a potential 5% return. This mass ownership approach has proved popular with smaller and larger investors alike, since it launched at the beginning of December 2022, despite the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

Many founding funders who engaged with the company during its establishing year have also reinvested in Highlands Rewilding’s crowdfund, in a strong show of support for its pioneering project. 

The £1 million has been raised by 622 ‘citizen rewilders’, 43% of whom live in Scotland, testament to the groundswell of support for nature restoration which is actively combatting climate meltdown and biodiversity collapse. The for-profit rewilding company hopes to achieve 1,000 investors in the crowdfund by the end of the campaign. Larger investors have also joined forces to raise many millions more, helping Highlands Rewilding expand its operations and take rewilding to scale in Scotland. 

Further supporting the ambitions of Highlands Rewilding, this month the UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB) committed £12 million to support the acquisition of Tayvallich Estate, a 1,300-hectare estate in Argyll.

The funding boost marked UKIB’s first deal exclusively in Scotland and will contribute to enabling Highlands Rewilding to develop new natural capital and revenue models on the Tayvallich Estate, and create an exemplar of community-company synergy. 

Dr. Jeremy Leggett, CEO of Highlands Rewilding, said: “We are delighted to be hitting such a key milestone in our fight against biodiversity collapse and climate meltdown.

“We aim to play a lead role in the great diversion of investment from ruin to restoration, through rewilding.

The more citizen rewilders invest at the £50 to £100 level, the more the financial institutions are likely to invest at the £50 million to £100 million level. Hitting the £1 million mark in our crowdfund shows that our model is working in offering tangible hope, not just for nature but also community prosperity.  

“Tayvallich is a new opportunity which has arisen since the start of our fundraising campaign. The success of our crowdfund and off-platform fundraise to date, has enabled us to sign a contract for the unique Tayvallich estate and expand our rewilding and decarbonisation work to three sites.

“Each site – Bunloit, Beldorney and Tayvallich – is unique in their own right, but together they are a powerhouse for Scottish nature recovery, and a beacon of hope for the global biodiversity treaty, recently agreed by 200-plus governments.” 

With three weeks to go, Highlands Rewilding is inviting investors to join it during its scaling campaign, that moves beyond the simple protection of nature towards nature recovery and restoration in Scotland, and later, beyond.  

As with any investment, those interested in the Highlands Rewilding project are encouraged to make sure they fully understand the process, what their investment means, and the potential risks of investing.  

Find out more about Highlands Rewilding and the crowdfund here:

www.highlandsrewilding.co.uk/crowdfund  

Scotland’s pioneering rewilding project announces Tayvallich Estate fundraising success

  • Highlands Rewilding has raised the required funds to buy Tayvallich Estate to expand its nature-recovery efforts
  • Project is using milestone to extend its crowdfunding and fundraising campaign for a further two months to fully test investor sentiment

Today (1st March), Scotland’s leading rewilding project, Highlands Rewilding, has announced that it has acquired the funds needed to buy the 3,500-acre Tayvallich Estate in Argyll. The estate joins the project’s two existing rewilding sites, Bunloit in Inverness and Beldorney in Aberdeenshire.

It was revealed in December last year that Founder and CEO of Highlands Rewilding, Dr Jeremy Leggett, a former Greenpeace Director, had made an exclusive offer to buy the estate for £10.5m, with an agreement that funds needed to be raised before the end of February.

Today’s news of the funds raised also comes as the Highlands Rewilding project team extend its crowdfund and fundraising campaign for a further two months until the end of April. This decision was agreed to fully test investor sentiment on the back of its strengthened business case of adding another estate to its portfolio and leading the charge in turning Scotland’s biodiversity future around.

Highlands Rewilding are seeking capital in three ways. The first is equity from citizen rewilders, via crowdfunding. The second is equity from all-important financial institutions. The third is the rest. This includes equity from investors of the kind who invested £7.6 million in the company’s start-phase round, including 50 Founding Funders: affluent rewilding enthusiasts, family offices, foundations, trusts and forward-looking companies.

Dr Jeremy Leggett, CEO and Founder of Highlands Rewilding, said: “The team is looking forward to the many aspects of work we will be able to do on Tayvallich. The rich tapestry of habitats onshore and offshore will provide fertile ground for our data acquisition and processing, and natural-capital verification science.

“The many activities we will be able to pursue with the local community will give us the chance to create an exemplar of community-company synergy and enshrine public integrity principles with ethical private interests.”

Already, the project’s crowdfund has attracted over 500 citizen rewilder investors, 40% of whom live in Scotland, who have boosted funds raised by over £800,000. While no upper limit has been set on the extension of the crowdfund and founding-funder type investment until the end of April, additional funds will allow the Highlands Rewilding team to scale nature recovery and community prosperity even more.

Dr Jeremy Leggett continued: “While we have tried and failed to attract the first major investments from investment funds, pension funds, and insurance companies, we know the appetite is there with many telling us that the project has made amazing progress, that they know there will be growth in the nature recovery market, and to revisit our conversions in six to twelve months’ time.

“Fund managers have told us that our mass ownership works well for them, because of the element of social licence it brings. Stated another way, the more that citizen rewilders invest at the £50 to £100 level, the more the financial institutions are likely to invest at the £50 million to £100 million level.

“This is something we’re committed to doing and when we revisit the approaches we have made this time around, we will be presenting a stronger case than ever before thanks to the success of this campaign. We will also live in hope that the Scottish Government can make the high integrity policy route to rewarding biodiversity uplift clearer by then.”

The Green Finance Institute estimates that nearly £100 billion will be needed in the UK over the next ten years to support nature-recovery targets and stop biodiversity decline by 2030. Scotland’s share of that is some £20 billion.

Dr Jeremy Leggett said: “We embarked on our campaign with trepidation, well aware of the cost-of-living crisis but it has gone better than we dared hope. I think the results we have seen gives a feel for how people long to see biodiversity collapse and climate meltdown turned around.

“At Highlands Rewilding, we dream of playing a lead role in the great diversion of investment from ruin to restoration. It’s a dream we’re slowly making a reality as we approach three years in business. Our hard work and plight to restore our nation’s biodiversity uplift is just beginning.”

Highlands Rewilding intends to close the purchase of Tayvallich Estate by the end of March. The details of the investment will be made public in due course.

Find out more about the Highlands Rewilding and the crowdfund: 

https://www.highlandsrewilding.co.uk/crowdfund 

UK economy risks collapse without urgent investment in nature

  • “There is no economy without nature” warns Dr Jeremy Leggett, ex Greenpeace Chief Scientific Advisor
  • Insurance companies, pension and investment funds are still financing fossil fuels – but urgently need to back nature recovery

The Green Finance Institute estimates that the UK is facing a finance gap of up to £97 billion to meet the UK’s nature-related targets by 2032. Without investment in climate mitigation, biodiversity restoration, flood prevention and other nature-related outcomes as outlined in public policy like the 25 Year Environment Plan, both our natural environment and economy face collapse.

Highlighting the urgent need for investment in nature, in the week that climate action group One Home reported that £600 million worth of homes are at risk of falling into the sea, Jeremy Leggett called on the UK’s financial sector to “step up or get washed away”.

Leggett, a former Chief Scientific Advisor to Greenpeace and founder of Solarcentury, one of the world’s most respected solar energy companies, is an experienced entrepreneur, who backed solar technology long before the government and financial institutions. Decades later, having proved his point with solar providing the cheapest energy available, he is now urging the financial sector to wake up to the facts and invest in the protection of nature.

“By continuing to invest in fossil fuels and related industries which destroy nature, institutional investors and many large funds are financing their own demise. There will be no business in a broken world. If big business does not invest in biodiversity and natural capital now, there will be no business.

He continued: “While the recent donation from Aviva of £38 million to the Wildlife Trust is a welcome development, donations are not a sustainable model for financing nature recover. Highlands Rewilding, and related projects, offer a new model for investment in nature-based solutions, with multiple revenue streams providing an economic and ecological return on investment.”

Having grown Solarcentury from a small South-London roofing company to a major international business deploying gigawatts of solar PV around the world, Leggett sold Solarcentury to Statkraft, which is owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade. But, rather than retire, Leggett invested his share of the proceeds – and raised more than £7 million – to start Highlands Rewilding, which currently owns two estates in Scotland.

“What we are doing here is opening up a pathway for businesses to finance nature recovery,” explains Leggett. “Humanity is at a tipping point which can go either way. Either we invest in the restoration of the natural environment, or we risk the complete collapse of civilization as we know it – including the economy.”

For the last few months Highlands Rewilding has been running a crowdfunding campaign, which has exceeded its initial target and raised over £700,000 from more than 400 individuals.

“Hundreds of citizens are helping to finance the vital nature recovery we so desperately need. But so far it is almost exclusively individuals who have stepped up to invest”, says Leggett.

“Government announcements, like the UK’s Ambitious roadmap for a cleaner, greener country, have pledged public money but the effort to halt biodiversity loss will need the backing of major investment funds, who are still sitting on the fence. The evidence is clear; Nature needs our help. But the major financial institutions are ignoring the warnings – and the opportunities.

“We saw it happen with renewables. Major finance was too slow to see the scale of the opportunity and too slow to come on board. Thankfully that situation changed but it took too long and we are living with the consequences. The situation is now even more urgent. Big business needs to back natural capital or the erosion of the economy will follow the same fate as the Norfolk coastline.”

Leggett is not alone in his assertions. Andy Howard, Global Head of Sustainable Investment points out that over half of global GDP, $44 trillion, is dependent on nature and its services, commenting: “The reality is stark: nature risk is fast becoming an integral factor to investment risk and returns”.

Dame Glenys Stacey, the chair of the government’s own Office for Environmental Protection commented that wildlife in particular was suffering “eye-watering” declines. “Species decline stands out – the rate of decline is inexorable,” she said. “This needs a lot of intervention, that is absolutely required.”

With the Treasury already stretched to its limits and further tax rises not compatible with the cost-of-living crisis it seems hard to imagine the government will be able to address the urgent funding gap at the required speed, or scale, to halt and reverse species decline. The only hope therefore is private sector finance and commercial capital.

In Scotland, Highlands Rewilding is performing a litmus test, entering the final quarter of its race to raise the required funds to scale nature recovery in Scotland. Their investment round is one of the first efforts after COP 15’s landmark biodiversity agreement, to break through the barrier of institutional finance.

Scotland’s pioneering rewilding project exceeds 50% of crowdfund target in less than three weeks

  • £271,320 of £500k target raised, so far from 239 (98 Scots) investors, with 10 weeks still to go
  • Halfway point comes as COP15 30×30 agreement reached to safeguard world’s ecosystems

Highlands Rewilding, Scotland’s 2,000-acre project focused on combating biodiversity collapse and climate meltdown, has raised over 50% of its £500,000 target in less than three weeks.

The crowdfund for mass ownership of the company Launched on 1st December and runs until the end of February. Exactly £271,320 (54.26%) has been raised from 239 investors, 98 of which are Scottish, so far.

The crowdfund’s milestone comes as the historic 30×30 deal at COP15 has been agreed, with 196 countries agreeing to the deal which aims to conserve 30% of the land, freshwater and ocean globally by 2030.

The Highlands Rewilding project intends to serve as an example of how citizen projects can help support the Scottish government reach their ambitious climate and biodiversity targets which are set on reversing nature loss by 2030 and substantially restoring and regenerating biodiversity by 2045.

Highlands Rewilding’s crowdfund encourages ‘citizen rewilders’ – those with a passion in the fight against climate meltdown and biodiversity collapse – to invest as little as £50 and anything up to £200,000.

Dr Jeremy Leggett, Founder and CEO of Highlands Rewilding, said: “We have been blown away and so encouraged by the support we have received from the nation’s citizen rewilders so far and thank every single investor for their support. Every pound really does count in enabling us to grow and expand the Highlands Rewilding model. We hope many more Scots will choose to join us in our quest.

“There has never been a more pivotal time for the nation to consider how nature recovery can support our world’s future, especially as the thirty-by-thirty deal has been reached at COP15 which makes a giant leap in conserving our land, freshwater and ocean globally. It acts as a hopeful exemplar of how grassroots projects, like Highlands Rewilding, can help governments meet their targets to safeguard vital ecosystems by the end of the decade.”

The ambitious Highlands Rewilding project, which stretches over 2,000 acres across two estates in the Scottish Highlands – Bunloit Estate in Inverness and Beldorney Estate in Aberdeenshire, – is pursuing a business model to scale nature recovery like no other.

As the project’s crowdfund and fundraising efforts continue, the Highlands Rewilding science team have released their second Natural Capital Report which uses cutting-edge methods, from satellites, to drone-based and ground-based sensors, eDNA analysis, and detailed observational work by ecologists, to assess biodiversity habitats and carbon stocks.

The results give an unprecedented insight into the Bunloit and Beldorney estates, and the methods that can be used to maximise benefits for the environment and the planet’s future prosperity.

Dr Jeremy Leggett added “Our Natural Capital Report provides us with a rich source of natural capital data which covers a variety of habitats so that we can better understand where efforts should be concentrated to harness and maximise carbon sources.

“In our continued efforts of producing high-quality, evidence-based data on natural capital quantification, our hope is that our work will begin to feed into the ongoing policymaking process in government to generate the best possible outcomes to support our nation’s long-term climate goals.

“After two and a half years of operations in our start phase, we have a strong and growing team, deep roots in our local communities, and a rapidly expanding core of cutting-edge science. Our intention is to become a world-class open laboratory for natural-capital verification science and demonstrate that natural capital can be grown verifiably for planet, people, and profit, both in wildland and actively managed land.”

It is hoped that £500,000 will be raised through the crowdfund by ‘citizen rewilders’. Investments are also expected from equity investors and financial institutions. No funding limit has been set for the entirety of the Highlands Rewilding fundraiser, but the organisation is aiming to raise at least eight million plus.

As with any investment, we encourage those interested in our project to make sure they fully understand the process, what their investment means and the potential risks of investing.

Find out more about the Highlands Rewilding and the crowdfund here:  

https://www.highlandsrewilding.co.uk/crowdfund 

You can download a copy of the Natural Capital Report here: 

https://www.highlandsrewilding.co.uk/research