Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review
Opt 1
Rhuari Bennett and Ruth Dalton October 2026
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 2
Contents About this report
3
Key findings
14
Esmée as a funder
33
6
1. Policy, advocacy and legal
15
Context overview
10
2. Evidence and data
18
Overview of Esmée’s funding and support
33
Scotland
12
3. Nature and Finance
21
35
England
12
4. Peat
Stakeholder feedback on working with Esmée
24
36
Wales
13
5. Chemicals
Where organisations are struggling
27
37
Northern Ireland
13
6. Enabling restoration
What more could Esmée do?
30
Executive summary
Bringing funded organisations together 38
Recommendations
Home Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
39
Appendix
42
1. Approach and methods
42
2. Contributing organisations
42
3. Image credits
43
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 3
About this report Esmée Fairbairn Foundation launched its strategy in October 2020 with three interdependent aims: Our Natural World; A Fairer Future; and Creative, Confident Communities. They identified ‘space for nature’ as one of five priorities in Our Natural World.
Acknowledgements
In March 2026, Esmée commissioned independent facilitators and evaluators, 3KQ, to carry out a review of work towards their space for nature priority, focusing on restoring nature and biodiversity at scale on land and sea.
We would like to thank everyone who contributed their time and insights as part of the research. We’d also like to thank Rhuari Bennett and Ruth Dalton at 3KQ for all their work on this review.
About 3KQ 3KQ are independent facilitators and evaluators specialising in complex and sensitive issues in the environmental field. We help organisations have better conversations with their stakeholders – so better decisions get made. www.3kq.co.uk
Right: Wildlife tour with Nick Patel at Heal Somerset © Tom Francome for Heal Rewilding Heal Rewilding works to help nature recovery, climate action and wellbeing. They do this by raising money to buy land and rewild it – giving back to nature, forever. They acquired their first site, a former dairy farm, in Somerset in 2022 with regular monitoring already showing evidence of nature recovery with an increase in different bird populations, whilst also having a strong focus on community engagement. Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 4
About this report
Esmée’s strategy for space for nature Protecting and creating more space for nature enables the restoration of damaged ecosystems and degraded landscapes. It’s also important that the benefits of being close to nature are accessible to all. The scale of nature’s decline in the UK cannot be addressed by our existing nature reserves, nor without fundamentally changing the way we use land. Fortunately, this decline is mirrored by a growing movement for connecting with nature and for finding and creating more wild spaces for nature – enabling natural processes to shape land and sea, repair damaged ecosystems and restore degraded landscapes.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
We want to encourage people’s enthusiasm for achieving better land use, and to build the evidence for policy makers. As well as supporting restoration of nature across the UK, we also want to engage communities to lead change so that nature is accessible to all.
Esmée is working towards two long-term outcomes: 1. Space for nature, and biodiversity, is restored at scale on land and at sea 2. More nature rich spaces for people to access and enjoy, particularly those facing barriers to doing so This review focuses on the first long-term outcome.
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 5
About this report
The key review questions were: 1. The changing context for restoring nature and biodiversity: in what ways is it better or worse?
The review asks how the context for work in this area has changed in the six years since the strategy was written, what difference Esmée’s funding has made, and where the Foundation should focus next.
2. The need for Esmée’s support: what has changed in the funding situation? 3. The opportunities for progress: what are the levers for change? 4. Which blockers for progress are more significant? 5. What difference has Esmée’s work and funding made, and where is it struggling? 6. What feedback is there on the way Esmée is working in this area?
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 6
Executive summary The changing context Since 2020, most of the UK has gained a post-Brexit framework of legally binding nature targets and independent watchdogs across the devolved nations.
Key findings 1. Policy, advocacy and legal
Alongside this, there has been a shift towards landscape-scale ambition and, in England and Wales, a public-money-for-public-goods farm support scheme. Public ocean and nature literacy is increasing, with growing action by communities and partnerships to protect and restore habitats and species.
The sector secured legally binding targets and independent watchdogs across most of the UK. As one of very few funders of long-term, unrestricted support for policy and advocacy, Esmée has a vital role to play. Organisations funded by Esmée helped deliver post-Brexit Environment Acts, government U-turns on the weakening of environmental protection, designation of Highly Protected Marine Areas and a legal challenge to the initial Environment Improvement Plan – leading to a stronger version with prioritised actions.
Yet, ambition has outpaced delivery. Targets lack regulation, funding and enforcement; nature is increasingly – and falsely – pitted against economic growth amid a rising anti-environment movement. Nature remains under systemic pressure, and although the foundations for reducing harm and supporting recovery are stronger than they were in 2020, the pace of positive change remains slow.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
2. Evidence and data Targets are being missed and evidence is underused, but robust use of data can build strong narratives to empower the public and influence policymakers. Esmée support has built partnerships, standardised data collection models and improved data accessibility – this approach has led to other funders starting to support similar work.
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 7
Executive summary Key findings
4. Peat
3. Nature and finance There have been positive developments in relation to catalysing new models of financing nature recovery, including Biodiversity Net Gain, but progress has been slower than anticipated. Business action on nature remains voluntary – this means that revenue models are not sufficient to scale up – although increasingly we are seeing some leading businesses invest in nature to reduce risk and increase resilience. As one of the few active philanthropic organisations working in nature finance, and the largest, Esmée has built coalitions underpinning nature-market policy governance and integrity; supported pilot projects; increased the capacity and capability of sectors to share learning and work together on this agenda; supported more business leadership in this area; and invested in pioneering UK nature finance funds and programmes. Globally, finance that is harmful for nature outweighs nature restoration finance by roughly 33 to 1, and Esmée are supporting organisations that are seeking to address this.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Funding has supported vital partnerships and coalitions and has transformed activity on peat, especially in northern England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Funded organisations have levered significant investment – £2m/yr from a £100k grant in the North Pennines, €19.2m via PEACEPLUS in NI.
5. Chemicals
Community ownership, grassroots campaigning and environmental literacy are starting to build, and there is a move towards greater alignment with EU regulation following an adversarial government approach post-Brexit. However, systemic issues with farming systems, a challenging funding picture and the appearance of a false nature vs economy narrative hamper progress. Esmée’s flexible, long-term funding has enabled the creation of delivery models for greater community engagement and ownership, sustained powerful eNGO collaborations, coordinated landscape-scale habitat restorations and tested new models of financing nature.
Post-Brexit, chemicals action and regulation has been weakened. The UK has fallen behind the EU and other nations, and meaningful targets have been absent. Esmée seeks out small specialist and technical charities driving change, often in partnership with other NGOs. It also supports chemicals workstreams in larger organisations. For both, chemicals funding is otherwise scarce, and funded organisations have achieved significant impacts: collating new evidence on pesticides in period products, developing a joint PFAS plan and influencing EU alignment on pesticides in the UK’s reset deal. Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
6. Enabling restoration
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 8
Executive summary Esmée as a funder Funded organisations universally praised Esmée’s flexible, unrestricted, multi-year funding – rare among funders and often transformative. In addition, they appreciated light-touch reporting requirements; proactive, knowledgeable grant managers; and leadership on diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI). Barriers lie largely outside Esmée’s control: political inertia; slow private finance; a hard-to-shift economic narrative; and low third-sector pay. The organisations would welcome more advocacy from Esmée with other funders, greater transparency on Esmée’s funding priorities; and feedback to unsuccessful applicants.
Recommendations Continue
1. Continue to fund systems work on policy and advocacy, finance, data and evidence and chemicals – sustaining work largely unfunded elsewhere through its rare flexible, long-term, unrestricted model.
4. Community power, access and citizen science: there is an increasing interest from communities in restoring and accessing nature. Also, a recognition of the links between restoring habitats in ways that improve health and wellbeing, sense of place and local economy. Esmée should continue to grow its support for community-led restoration and the conditions that make this possible.
Strengthen
2. Convene funded organisations: Through informal networking and focused, outcomedriven workshops. 3. Consider increasing funding work that accelerates delivery and accountability to existing policy and law. The UK now has stronger targets and frameworks than it did five years ago, but delivery and enforcement remain weak. Esmée already play an important role in relation to turning these frameworks into real-world change. Further work on strategic use of law can help hold Government to account.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
5. Defend the environmental narrative: Climate and nature are increasingly framed against growth, and environmental action is facing more hostility. However, there is also a heightened recognition of the importance of nature for the resilience of national infrastructure and farming, and for health and wellbeing. This suggests a stronger role for narrative work, trusted messengers, community-led approaches, and clearer evidence of the social and economic benefits of restoration.
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 9
Executive summary
Recommendations continued Expand
6. Expand Esmée’s leadership role with other funders; advocating for better funding models – championing multi-year core revenue funding to government and other funders. 7. Build broader coalitions and cross-sector partnerships for nature recovery: supporting collaboration between environmental organisations, communities, businesses, investors, land managers and public bodies so that nature recovery becomes embedded within mainstream economic, social and place-based decision-making. 8. Expand the Land Purchase Facility: widening this rare, valued mechanism to include more eligible organisations and sites and acquisition at a greater scale.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Communicate
9. Update the application guidance for Space for Nature to provide a clearer articulation of priorities and portfolio. Consider different mechanisms for applications – for example, specific calls for proposals or windowed applications for specific strands of work, rather than an open award period, which may help organisations to see themselves as potential applicants. 10. Consider how to share learning and insights from funded organisations to a wider audience.
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 10
Context overview The period from 2020 to 2026 has seen a significant shift in the UK’s approach to habitat and species restoration. Most of the UK has a new post-Brexit framework of legally binding targets and there have also been efforts to take more strategic approaches to land use. Farm support in England and Wales is more fully linked to a public payment for public goods agenda. There is also a growing emphasis on landscape-scale delivery and an increase in ambition on the scale and connectivity of work. However, much of the ambition has yet to be translated into action, with concerns that many environmental targets are limited in scope and have yet to be backed by effective regulation and funding. The systemic barriers that have driven the decline of habitat and species still exist, with farming systems being a major driver of this on land, and unsustainable fishing practices at sea.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Dimension
2020
2026
Legal framework
Voluntary targets, EU-derived protections.
The Environment Act 2021 but Planning and Infrastructure Bill a major risk (England); Natural Environment Act 2026 (Scotland); Environment Act 2026 (Wales); still limited statutory backing in NI. Launch of independent watchdogs across the devolved nations. Some marine action, though the New Marine Licensing Order has become overdue.
Politics
Reasonable cross-party commitment to restoring habitats and species.
The advance of “anti-environment” movements. A breakdown in Net Zero political consensus; nature falsely pitted against economic growth, exacerbated by a cost-of-living crisis.
Scale of ambition
Fragmented, site based.
Landscape-scale, with explicit hectarage targets, but funding does not match demand.
Funding mechanisms
CAP agri-environment schemes. Philanthropic funding.
Devolved agri-environment schemes; Nature for Climate Fund (ends 2027). Emerging nature markets and Biodiversity Net Gain; Marine Recovery Fund & Marine Environment and Fisheries Fund. Philanthropic funding more constrained and competitive whilst organisations deal with rising internal costs.
Spatial planning
Limited
Local Nature Recovery Strategies and the Land Use Framework are yet to establish delivery mechanisms (England), Regional Land Use Partnerships (Scotland), Area Statements (Wales). Marine Planning and Marine Conservation Zone process ongoing but destructive fishing still permitted in existing Marine Protected Areas. National infrastructure targets can conflict with nature conservation – e.g. expansion of wind power at sea.
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 11
Context overview Dimension
2020
2026
Private finance
Nascent
Small but growing – over 300 investable projects in England; private finance being leveraged for peatland, woodland, and rainforest restoration in Scotland. But progress slower than expected, with supply outstripping demand and little evidence of Government commitment to underpinning regulatory frameworks.
Corporate action
Limited
New global Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) aiming to position corporate action as a key driver of nature restoration, but no legislative power. Increased understanding of nature related risk in some sectors (e.g. food) and some corporates taking steps to mitigate climate and nature risks, including through working with their supply chains. Nature Positive Pathways have potential to provide greater clarity to business on contribution to national environmental targets.
Technology
Focussed on data handling to analyse past events.
Artificial intelligence as a new tool for monitoring and predicting future impacts. However, the potential environmental impact of more data centres is significant. Technology such as e-DNA and remote sensing makes it much faster to collect large amounts of high-quality data, although challenges remain about how that data is analysed, stored, and shared.
Species recovery
Reactive, project-based
Increasingly strategic, with national programmes for reintroductions and extinction prevention. Local Nature Recovery Strategies aim to target delivery (England).
Marine
Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009
Progress lagging behind terrestrial habitats. Statutory targets for marine biodiversity included in the UK Environment Act 2021 but devolved legislation and lack of regulation and enforcement hampers progress.
People and Communities
Public support and interest in nature high
Higher community action on nature. Effective grassroots campaigning and societal expectation around issues such as water quality and pesticides in food. Interest in new models of community leadership and ownership. Small steps to make sector more representative and inclusive of UK population but still much more needed.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 12
Context overview Each of the four nations has pursued its own policy pathway, but all have responded to mounting evidence of biodiversity decline and the need for systemic change.
England
Scotland The Scottish Parliament passed the “Natural Environment (Scotland) Act 2026” in January. This establishes statutory, legally binding targets for nature restoration, with Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) appointed as the independent watchdog. The key goal is for Scotland to become “nature positive” by 2030 and to fully restore its natural environment by 2045. The Scottish Biodiversity Strategy to 2045 is being implemented through a delivery plan with key developments including: • Peatland ACTION. The programme targets 250,000 hectares by 2030.
• Regional Land Use Partnerships are being rolled out, but these have had limited impact to date. However, challenges remain. The State of Nature Scotland 2023 report showed a 15% decline in average abundance of 407 terrestrial and freshwater species since 1994, and 11% of Scottish species are threatened with extinction. Native woodland condition remains a concern, with more than half not in good condition due to deer impacts. Agricultural payments are still predominantly for direct area-based payments, rather than rewarding farmers for delivering public goods.
• Landscape-scale restoration is expanding through partnerships such as Cairngorms Connect, a 200-year vision for the Cairngorms.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
The Environment Act 2021 transformed the legal and policy framework, and the Office for Environmental Protection has been launched as a public oversight body to hold government to account. England now has statutory targets to restore or create over 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat outside protected sites by 2042; to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030 and to improve the outlook for species on the Red List Index for species extinction risk by 2042. The newly published Land Use Framework and Local Nature Recovery Strategies provide spatial frameworks for prioritising nature recovery but as yet have not given clear delivery mechanisms to incentivise action on the ground. Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes (Sustainable Farming Incentive, Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier, Landscape Recovery) are expected to deliver the largest share of habitat creation and restoration, although Defra has been criticised for failing to provide the clarity and resources required to deliver these schemes effectively.
Recommendations
Appendix
England’s uplands, especially common land, struggle to access appropriate support. Emerging nature markets and biodiversity credits have developed more slowly than expected. Biodiversity Net Gain became mandatory from 2024, requiring development to deliver at least 10% net gain for biodiversity, but there is currently an oversupply of sites for restoration, with many developers choosing to carry out BNG obligations on their own land. More recently the Government have consulted on proposed changes and exceptions to BNG, and the implementation of a Nature Restoration fund legislated through the Planning and Infrastructure Act. Both have had a chilling effect on nature markets. Natural England’s 2025 strategy explicitly frames nature as “essential national infrastructure” and commits to shifting from isolated interventions to landscape-scale recovery, with a target of 30% of land and sea effectively managed for nature by 2030. However, it is widely recognised that Natural England does not have adequate public resources to comfortably deliver its targets.
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 13
Context overview Wales The “Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) (Wales) Act 2026” enshrines four foundational European environmental principles directly into Welsh domestic law. The Act forces Welsh Ministers to establish statutory, legally binding targets to halt and reverse biodiversity decline, in a nation where 20% of native species are at risk of extinction. This includes the creation of a new independent watchdog, the Office of Environmental Governance Wales.
Home
About
Executive summary
The Nature Recovery Action Plan has also been refreshed, and Natural Resources Wales’s Area Statements are now guiding local delivery. The Sustainable Farming Scheme (replacing the Basic Payment Scheme) is expected to become the main vehicle for habitat restoration on farmland, though rollout has faced delays and there are high levels of mistrust amongst farmers. Wales has also invested in peatland restoration and woodland creation, and the National Forest for Wales programme aims to increase tree cover significantly. However, progress toward formal statutory targets has been slow, and funding constraints have limited the pace of delivery.
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland has made some progress but remains behind the other nations, partly hindered by political instability and the lack of an independent environmental regulator (the Northern Ireland Environment Agency is an executive agency of DAERA). The Environment Strategy for Northern Ireland (published 2021) set out a vision for 2050 and interim goals, and the Office for Environmental Protection has oversight in Northern Ireland as well as in England, but delivery mechanisms detailed in the Environmental Improvement Plan have been delayed. The recent return of the Executive and the appointment of proactive leadership at DAERA have unlocked stalled policies but the environmental sector is still impeded by over a decade of political disruption.
Recommendations
Appendix
Agri-environment uptake remains limited, and there is no equivalent to the large-scale landscape recovery or biodiversity net gain frameworks in England or Scotland. Area-based payments are now transitioning into the Farming with Nature Package, and a more ambitious Farming with Nature Transition Scheme but the highly fragmented nature of land ownership in Northern Ireland remains a barrier to large-scale habitat and species restoration. Recent efforts have focused on peatland restoration (notably through EU LIFE-funded projects) but there is no clear funding plan for delivery of the newly published Peatland Strategy and Action Plan. Species recovery work is still largely funded by philanthropic donors.
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 14
Key Findings 1. Policy, advocacy and legal
15
2. Evidence and data
18
3. Nature and Finance
21
4. Peat
24
5. Chemicals
27
6. Enabling restoration
30
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 15
Key Findings
1. Policy, advocacy and legal Despite EU environmental protections being under threat after Brexit, the sector has worked together to ensure progressive policies and legally binding targets for nature have been established in almost all of the UK – but there has been a marked divergence of approaches across the four nations. In England, following the passing of the Environment Act in 2021, measures such as Biodiversity Net Gain have not progressed as swiftly as expected and Defra-administered agri-environment Schemes have been criticised for poor administration and unnecessary complexity. However, the Defra-funded Farming in Protected Landscapes programme, administered by National Parks and National Landscapes, has been praised for its flexible, place-based approach, and more recently, additional resources have been allocated to Landscape Recovery programmes and the Farmer Collaboration Fund.
Home
About
Executive summary
Newly passed environmental laws in Wales and Scotland set an ambitious framework of targets but have yet to drive significant action on the ground, although Wales is seeing the first steps towards a “public money for public goods” approach in the new Sustainable Farming Scheme. In Northern Ireland, campaigning has started for elections in 2027, further hampering legislative progress for habitats and species. Post-Brexit, farming and fishing were politicised, and there was a decline in small-scale fishing and in the resilience of coastal communities as the promised ban on EU fleet access to UK waters failed to come into effect, although there is evidence of UK and devolved governments using some of its powers to reduce the impact of fisheries, such as the ban on commercial fishing for sand eels.
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
In 2026, there is further global and domestic political uncertainty, characterised by a growing antienvironment movement and increasingly polarised debate around climate, farming and nature.
In new National Parks we have seen ‘low social licence’ because the anti-campaigns are so hostile that many people have been scared to join meetings…How do we create safe spaces?” Engagement with the farming community needs to be supported and prioritised.”
Recommendations
Appendix
Below: Rewilding Britain team with placards saying ‘It’s time to let nature lead’ at the Restore Nature Now march © Alex Lester Rewilding Britain defines rewilding as the large-scale restoration of ecosystems to the point where nature can take care of itself. They believe that nature has a vital role to play in the challenges we face from flood reduction and cleaner water to reducing wildfires and the recovery of marine fisheries. As well as funding rewilding projects across Britain, they also influence policy and practice, and support the sharing of knowledge and practice.
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 16
Key Findings 1. Policy, advocacy and legal
Blockers
Levers for change
• Insufficient and unstable funding streams – siloed and fragmented, short-term funding which does not match the long timeframes needed for habitat and species recovery. An over-reliance on the promise of future private finance and limited philanthropic funding as governments fail to prioritise investment in the environment. Existing funding (e.g. from Water Companies and infrastructure providers) is spent in fragmented and sub-optimal ways.
• A narrative of Nature vs Economic Growth – political narratives present nature as a barrier to economic growth and development, despite evidence that nature-friendly ways of working offer better economic results for communities and businesses. • Systemic lack of monitoring and enforcement – current targets are being missed; through lack of resources and low political will, monitoring and enforcement is not prioritised. Environment is often siloed within and between Government departments. Non-compliance for nature targets continues.
• Using the law as a driver for environmental enhancement – public support for nature remains high and civil society is becoming more confident in using the law to holding decision makers and institutions to account through legal action. Communities are increasingly mobilising, campaigning and taking action on nature recovery. This is tempered by disproportionate state resistance to peaceful protest, the need for new laws fit for purpose for today’s environmental challenges, and government challenge to the Aarhus Convention.1 • Increase in ambition, scale and connectivity of landscape and seascape scale collaboration – partnerships between farmers, NGOs, water companies, local authorities and communities to restore whole catchments, landscapes and seascapes.
• Clear national frameworks for action on the environment with governance and accountability mechanisms – including legally binding targets (present or developing), clearer duties on public bodies.
The law offers an opportunity to resolve one of the big issues – which is different departments working in different directions and the environment getting lost in the gaps.” • Alignment with Europe – the appetite for closer relations with the EU, and alignment with by and large higher standards, may offer some opportunities for improving environmental commitments that haven’t kept pace in the UK.
1 United Nations Economic Commission
for Europe: Aarhus Convention
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 17
Key Findings 1. Policy, advocacy and legal
Impact of Esmée’s support Esmée is one of very few funders supporting advocacy and policy – particularly through long-term, unrestricted grants that enable sustained work in the face of political uncertainty and a volatile global context. Funding for policy, advocacy and legal work has supported organisations to achieve legally binding targets for nature and the creation of independent watchdogs in the four nations. Legislative shifts in the marine environment have also taken place, which have been complicated by the need for alignment across devolved nations.
The Foundation has also enabled organisations to recruit and retain staff members whose roles may be crucial to protecting fragile environments, but which are difficult to fund from other sources. Overall, the funding secures ‘a seat at the table’ that allows nature’s voice to be heard when decisions are being made.
Esmée funding has allowed us to pilot a regional marine planning role that is allowing us to respond to large scale infrastructure projects happening across the North Sea where there was no capacity otherwise.” – Workshop participant
Specific impacts include:
Esmée funding has been a game changer in enabling us to continue and expand our work tracking UK/EU environmental divergence and governance. It acted as a lever to bring in/double funding for our work. Moreover – it has enabled us to take a role in improving EU-UK relations and hosting the first public meetings between Ministers and Commission counterparts on environment, since Brexit.”
• Key post-Brexit legislation – e.g. Environment Acts in England, Scotland and Wales • Government U-turn post-Brexit on automatically revoking all environmental laws derived from Europe: moved to a case-by-case application to revoke instead. • Government U-turn on scrapping the Future Homes Standard. • Designation of three Highly Protected Marine Areas in Irish Sea, Channel and North Sea. • Welsh, English and Scottish government recognition of beavers as a native species, with legal protection.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Funding covering 1.5FTE Policy Officers allowed us the capacity to influence the development of two new pieces of legislation for Wales, the Agriculture (Wales) Act 2023 and Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) (Wales) Act 2026. Two key pieces of law that were far stronger for our being able to put capacity into drafting and lobbying for specific amendments. One of which wouldn’t have come into being without Esmée putting capacity into our campaigning over the last 5 years.”
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 18
Key Findings
2. Evidence and data Currently, targets for nature restoration are not being met, despite a raft of new legislation.
We need to help people overcome the sense of helplessness and to lean into the challenges.”
Compelling narratives are required, supported by clear, consistent data analysis and interpretation to influence governments and behaviour. This can help overcome policy barriers, achieve better monitoring and enforcement and, in addition, empower the public, leading to greater levels of personal action and responsibility.
Right: Puffins on the Farnes Islands © Ruth Chambers for Green Alliance The Green Alliance brings the climate and nature movement together. It conducts independent analyses, convenes stakeholders, and advocates for solutions to environmental issues in the UK. Their projects involve in-depth research and expert advocacy under subject themes, often in partnership with other organisations and interests. Their profile and specialist events help to debate and shape the agenda, and engage senior decision makers in dialogue on important environmental issues. Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 19
Key Findings 2. Evidence and data
Blockers
Levers for change
• Evidence is underused by practitioners– there are inconsistent and, in some cases, sub-optimal approaches by conservation organisations to use evidence to inform conservation activity which means that resources are not directed effectively. • Lack of funding – especially for impact assessment, long-term monitoring and appraisal. Also, a chronic lack of investment in applied research and development. Funding tends to be short-term and directed towards delivery on the ground.
• Failure to have adequately made the case for the environment in an increasingly challenging global context, including engaging young people and ensuring expertise in the future. It was felt that data and evidence was needed in order to create robust narratives, mobilise public support and encourage more people to seek a career in working in environmental conservation.
The ‘nature vs business’ narrative is very damaging, especially in a cost-of-living crisis (newts, bats etc).”
• Whilst there are risks, Artificial Intelligence allows vast amounts of evidence to be rapidly synthesized in response to bespoke queries. Used carefully, this can lead to multiple benefits including public engagement, citizen science, and empowering developers to support nature.
It is likely that effective use of evidence can double the effectiveness of practice. AI can be key here.”
A lot of applied research is neither applied or applicable, at least • Systemic lack of monitoring and enforcement of existing legislation not in the shape they are delivered is a key blocker. In addition, in in publications. The development of Northern Ireland, there are decision support tools, for example, no statutory targets in place falls in between what is termed as for habitats and species, but these are being lobbied for Science and Consultancy and hence, inclusion in the Nature attracts very little funding.” Recovery Strategy.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
• In addition, online tools (including virtual meetings becoming the norm during the covid pandemic), make it easier for people to share, synthesise, and understand data and evidence, and to move from monitoring and evaluation to testing theories in practice. Vital as data is, narratives and effective storytelling are also needed to convey messages clearly to government and the general public.
We mustn’t forget the importance of storytelling. Data and evidence alone aren’t enough to prompt better decision making.”
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 20
Key Findings 2. Evidence and data
Impact of Esmée’s support
Specific impacts include:
Esmée’s support has enabled organisations to grow their networks, build resilience into their organisations through training and improved business practices, and carry out landscape scale evidence-based habitat and species restoration. The support has developed and maintained standards in data collection, storage and accessibility which is essential to robust science behind positive changes.
• Publishing the first ‘blue carbon’ map of the UK to show offshore carbon sinks. • Baseline ecological mapping of 10,000ha of contiguous farms in the Weald to Waves, South East England. • Standardising data collection from UK rewilding projects to showcase the impacts coherently. • Collation and packaging data from 182 data providers on 51,000 species on a single database. • Summarising 9,495 studies into 28 evidence synopses in freshwater restoration to share scientific progress.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Esmée has shown leadership in the evidence field that has led to many practitioner organisations and funders following.” A new monitoring approach we have developed produced revenue of £100K in 25/26, as well as providing a strategically important infrastructure for the conservation sector, supporting commercial, eNGO and volunteer groups and individuals. The unrestricted funding was so helpful for developing the technology (boring database stuff etc).”
Recommendations
Appendix
Esmée funding of £20K/year over past four years enabled us to grow our youth programme, and a benefit has been that we now have recruited at least five members of staff from our youth volunteer network.” Esmée funding of £300k has enabled us to set up a Species Recovery Partnership for NI – enabling us to bring all the species-led eNGOs, NIEA, National Trust and Ulster Wildlife together. This has resulted in the production of 37 species action plans and development of a bid for NLHF funding which will be c £6-7m...”
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 21
Key Findings
3. Nature and Finance The philanthropic funding environment Since the 2020 Esmée strategy, is challenging, with grant funding there has been some policy highly competitive, but eNGOs have progress at a high level, with clear been successful in recent years at legal targets now in place and working together to strengthen momentum gained in the private partnership working and overcome sector. However, this has been funding challenges. confounded by policy rollbacks and uncertainty such as the weakening of Biodiversity Net Gain and patchy rollout of agri-environment schemes across the four nations. Action on the ground has therefore been less significant than anticipated. The optimism over the role of private finance to help support terrestrial habitats has been only partially realised, with good progress made in terms of supply, but demand still weak. Marine Net Gain, driven by the expansion of offshore wind, is still in the development phase.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 22
Key Findings 3. Nature and Finance
Blockers
Levers for change
• The voluntary nature of business action on nature leads to a lack of clarity, poor metrics and regulations that are not fit for purpose. Gaps in market governance, standards and assurance also make business and investors reluctant to risk accusations of greenwash. Upskilling businesses to enable nature-positive actions requires cultural change and strong leadership across complex supply chains. • Complex and burdensome delivery systems such as agri-environment schemes, BNG and restoration funds can be bureaucratic and hard to navigate, slowing uptake and excluding smaller actors. Confidence among land-owning businesses has been diminished by rapidly changing landbased schemes and a perception of low political support.
Nature is less understood than carbon…” • Distraction – a focus on financing nature recovery is diverting effort away from reducing the larger finance flows that are damaging nature. It is also inhibiting investment in new alternative systems.
According to the IPBES business and biodiversity assessment2 (2026): at a global level, investment in nature positive/restoration business practices is only 3% of investment in nature damaging practices.” We need private sector action as well as strong public spending commitments – it’s not an either/or.”
2 IPBES ICT Guide: Business and
• An increase in business and private sector action on nature as a whole, and an increase in blending public funding with private investment (BNG, carbon, water quality, flood mitigation). Creating a coherent market infrastructure to support this will be vital.
• Increase in ambition, scale and connectivity of landscape and seascape scale collaboration – partnerships between farmers, NGOs, water companies, local authorities and communities to restore whole catchments, landscapes and seascapes.
A way to make the business case is by accounting for the ££s across health, climate, carbon, biodiversity, access...”
ELMS Landscape Recovery offers huge potential for change at scale. It’s early days and there are some teething issues, but we need to stick with it as could be transformational…”
• Clear national frameworks for action on the environment with governance and accountability mechanisms – including legally binding targets across the four nations, and clearer duties on public bodies. These need to translate into the same kind of sectoral contributions and pathways for nature that exist for climate. Work on this is being carried out by an Esmée-funded organisation in collaboration with WWF and Defra (Nature Positive Pathways).
biodiversity assessment
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
• Opportunity for new models – place-based activity that is led by farmers and wider communities, offer models to scale finance while delivering more durable ecological and social outcomes.
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 23
Key Findings 3. Nature and Finance
Impact of Esmée’s support In the emerging world of nature and finance, Esmée support has enabled the formation of crucial coalitions and partnerships, built consensus around the importance of nature market integrity and laid the foundations for much-needed governance. It has also unlocked funding from other public and private bodies.
Specific impacts include: • Developed ‘investible propositions’ in the north of England, to make investment easy. • Grown the National Consultation Group for the Taskforce for Naturerelated Financial Disclosures to 1,300 members and 600 companies. • Grown the number of formally committed adopters of the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures in the UK to 95 (third largest in world). • Grant and social investment has catalysed a finance offer of £174m for various natural capital services across the North East Cotswold Farmer Cluster catchment. In addition, provide catalytic investment into the UK Nature Fund. • Core support to organisations such as the Broadway Initiative and Green Finance Institute to influence and shape policy on market development on governance, codes and standards.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
• Support to pilot projects in England and Scotland with the Environment Agency and Nature Scot to test new models. Increasing the capacity and capability of the sector to engage in nature finance, through establishing communities of practice through the Ecosystem Knowledge Network (EKN).
The project funding was invaluable in bringing together nearly 200 professionals from ~150 organisations in building a consensus around what is needed in nature market integrity. The success of this project laid the essential foundations for the Environmental Markets Governance Scheme which is now coming online with support from Defra looking very likely.”
Recommendations
Appendix
The flexibility in Esmée funding allowed GFI to combine with other funding sources to develop the Investment Readiness Toolkit and assessment work under NEIRF and FIRNS. This has unlocked investment readiness funding for 100+ projects across England and Scotland.” We have had great success in building a collaborative ‘coalition of the willing’ in the North ~100 cross-sector organisations. The advocacy work has enabled nature to be recognised as a priority.”
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 24
Key Findings
4. Peat There is a risk across the UK of peatland conservation being undermined by development policy, especially with an increased focus on wind power in the uplands.
Home
About
Executive summary
Strategies and action plans are in place but are not legally binding, and budgets are insufficient to meet national restoration targets. Funding that is in place focuses on large sites and the most degraded land, leading to missed opportunities elsewhere, and the focus is largely on carbon, rather than biodiversity. In England, peatland is not well integrated into landscape-scale funding programmes, and uptake by private finance for peatland restoration has been low.
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
However, in Scotland there have been positive alignments with private finance through the Peatland Code and Carbon Price Guarantee, and Peatland Action is leading to encouraging levels of blended finance projects. In Northern Ireland, the Peatland Strategy (2025) and Delivery Plan (2026) are encouragingly aligned with the climate delivery plan but a complex pattern of land ownership hampers delivery.
Recommendations
Appendix
Below: The team after installing sheep’s wool bunds to help restore an eroding area of peat © Crichton Carbon Centre Crichton Carbon Centre works to keep carbon where it belongs and repair nature. They focus on practical rural climate solutions, working on peatland restoration projects, delivering training, ecological management, socioecological art, and environmental education.
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 25
Key Findings 4. Peat
Blockers
Levers for change
• A lack of funding is the largest blocker for peatland restoration, coupled with impractically short application and delivery windows. Farmer and landowner involvement in restoration schemes is hampered by low payment rates and a lack of confidence and trust in complex and bureaucratic agri-environment schemes.
• A lack of data on peatland condition, despite plenty of spatial data on peatlands, makes it difficult to carry out meaningful monitoring. The public sector is also withdrawing funding from baseline monitoring which will make it more difficult to fund restoration in the future.
• Too much focus on the role of institutional investors and the private sector has weakened the case for strong public spending commitments and investment in regulation and enforcement. As a result, the coordination of peatland restoration has been overly reliant on philanthropic funding.
We need data and science to make the case and keep peat relevant… drinking water quality, air quality etc is relevant to everyone!”
• An increase in ambition, scale and connectivity of landscape-scale collaboration is a key driver for peatland restoration. There is a growing appetite for collaborative action, especially in Northern Ireland and via the Great North Bog Initiative in Northern England. • More strategic land use planning is an important lever, especially in light of new development proposals that will limit future opportunities for peatland delivery. New Land Use Plans/Frameworks and England’s newly published Local Nature Recovery Strategies could deliver strategic gains, but these can be limited by local resources.
Many local ecologists are not peatland specialists (or Local Authorities do not have an ecologist).”
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
• There is growing awareness of peat restoration as a more straightforward and less costly solution compared to other options for reducing carbon emissions and meeting stated targets. There has been a higher-level political uptake after elections in the nations and the recent launch of the Delivery Plan in Northern Ireland, but data is needed to support further work.
Support for quantification is needed (science/data/monitoring) to allow us to make a qualitative/ economic case alongside other land use proposals or the ‘do nothing’ option.”
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 26
Key Findings 4. Peat
Impact of Esmée’s support
Specific impacts include:
Esmée’s support for peatland work has focused on collaboration, engagement and partnerships across communities, practitioners and academia. Levering investment of many times the grants awarded, Esmée funding has also built evidence through mapping and data collection, national action plans, boosted skills and employment, and facilitated new national and international partnerships.
• Leveraging £2m/yr wider finance from Esmée’s £100,000/yr grant in the North Pennines. • Annual peatland conference gathering over 400 peat restoration specialists for 3 days to share learning and ideas. • Leveraging €19.2m for peatland restoration in Northern Ireland via the PEACEPLUS programme.
Esmée’s £60k annual investment into our Peat Partnership has allowed us to leverage an average of £1million per year for delivery of peatland restoration.” Has helped Crichton Carbon Centre to build to a team of 10, offer permanent contracts and attract new (younger!) people and skills into our very rural region.”
• 400 Peatland Code projects in the UK, connecting private finance demand with peat restoration supply.
The NI Peatlands Collaborative Network that Esmée has funded has transformed collaborative peatlands work in NI, putting in place joined up planning, restoration and monitoring protocols and supporting the development of new collaborative projects and securing of funding e.g. 19.2million euros from PEACEPLUS.”
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
I had a conversation with someone only encountered through an IUCN call, and after 1 hour, we had a clear route to solve some significant practical issues with the potential of levering Research Council money.”
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 27
Key Findings
5. Chemicals Since the UK left the EU, chemicals regulation has become less effective and chemicals-related targets are missing from all the major pieces of environmental legislation that have been passed in recent years. While the EU is pushing forward with bans on thousands of hazardous substances simultaneously, the UK has chosen a slower, sector-by-sector approach. The third sector, largely supported by Esmée, has been crucial to pushing back in the face of powerful lobbying from industry.
Home
About
Executive summary
Specific policy mechanisms like the National Action Plan on Pesticides rely on vehicles such as Environmental Land Management schemes for delivery, and there is a lack of data and monitoring, especially in soil and water. Urban/road run-off is a significant issue that is not measured by the Environment Agency, which therefore cannot effectively regulate or enforce pollution controls in the aquatic environment. Movement towards closer political alignment with the EU, for example through the forthcoming agri-food deal, could result in reduced chemical pollution, as could the growing levels of voluntary alignment across different sectors.
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Right: Illustration highlighting how chemical pollutants from human activities make their way into the environment from CHEM Trust. See the full guide to learn more. CHEM Trust works to prevent synthetic chemicals from causing long-term damage to nature, wildlife and people. They work with policy makers, scientists, and other charities and civil society groups to campaign for restrictions on hazardous chemicals, and ensure that they are replaced with safer alternatives. They specifically focus on chemicals that can disrupt the endocrine system, and persistent chemicals such as PFAS ‘forever chemicals’.
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 28
Key Findings 5. Chemicals
Blockers
Levers for change Manufacturers… are claiming they need to continue to use PFAS, even though there are alternatives. They are, in some cases, winning the public debate...”
• Regulatory exemptions and weak enforcement. Repeated exemptions for restricted pesticides, combined with limited monitoring and enforcement capacity, allow environmentally harmful chemicals to remain in use despite clear evidence of damage.
A failure to regulate is the biggest problem for chemical pollution control in England and Wales.” • Current targets are off track and, owing to limited resources and low political will, monitoring and enforcement are not prioritised. The environment is often siloed within and between Government departments so non-compliance for nature targets continues, exacerbated by competing interests and corporate lobbying.
• Many farming systems remain structurally dependent on pesticides due to crop choices, debt, advisory norms and short term risk, making transition away from chemicals slow and uneven. Vested interests from agrochemical companies push the sales of inputs, including pesticides, despite the economic benefits of alternative chemical-free farming practices. A lack of political focus on resilient, nature-friendly farming results in poor investment in skills building, training and peer-topeer networks.
The chemicals lobby sustains The EA say they have a narrative around cheap fertiliser insufficient resources, but that cannot be an excuse for not delivering being necessary to support struggling farmers.” Statutory Duties.”
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
• The National Action Plan includes the UK’s first target for pesticide reduction, which, although limited in scope, should drive action. • Ideally, the UK would align with the EU on the control of pollution at source in soils and waters, including a reform of chemical authorisation of whole groups of persistent substances. This would prevent initial contamination, rather than relying on costly and often ineffective downstream clean up.
Cost is also an implication here – it is cheaper to control at source than clean up afterwards.” • Chemical reduction should be positioned as essential infrastructure for nature recovery. Framing pesticide and chemical action as a prerequisite for restoring habitats and species – rather than an optional add on – clarifies its central role alongside land use change and restoration investment.
Recommendations
Appendix
• Farmers are transitioning to regenerative farming systems as the business case for transition grows and the costs of chemicals inputs increase, especially in the face of disruption to global supply chains. Post-Brexit farming and environmental payments have the potential to reward land managers for restoring habitats and natural processes, not just mitigating harm.
[This is part of a] just transition – helping those dependent on chemicals to move away from them.” • Understanding of chemical impacts is at an all-time high. Freshwater pollution is under acute public scrutiny leading to political pressure for change. Larger NGOs have started engaging and campaigning, and there is progress at local authority level.
Chemicals sit in an unusual space somewhat above the “culture wars” that surround other environmental issues.”
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 29
Key Findings 5. Chemicals
Impact of Esmée’s support Core funding from Esmée has been crucial to the development of third sector activity to tackle chemical pollution. In a field of significant environmental concern, which is largely unfunded by other bodies, Esmée has sought out small, less visible charities working in this space and supported them to deliver powerful change. Esmée’s Funding Plus support has been particularly important here to develop organisational growth and transformation.
Home
About
Executive summary
Specific impacts include: • New evidence collated and published on pesticides in period products. • Agreement of a joint partner plan on PFAS ‘forever chemicals’. • Leading supermarkets phasing out some pesticides in certain food lines. • Government U-turn on relaxing chemical labelling rules in Northern Ireland post-Brexit.
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Esmée Fairbairn’s belief in our little charity and its ventures is such a tonic. I thought we were rather invisible even though we were working so very hard to make a difference and Esmée gave us a leg-up... That belief in our charity and its purpose has become the fire that fuels us and drives us on.”
Recommendations
Appendix
The £5K Funding Plus grant turned the organisation round in 2011…from almost going bust, to enabling year-on-year income growth at 11-12% per year – which continues to this day.” The funding gave us the capacity, when the opportunity arose, to encourage the European Commission to make dynamic alignment a prerequisite of the UK/EU Reset Deal. That win wouldn’t have happened without Esmée’s long term funding. This means we are now going to realign with the most robust pesticide regime in the world. Far from perfect, but still the best.”
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 30
Key Findings
6. Enabling restoration Since the publication of the Space for Nature Strategy in 2020, the role that communities play in restoring habitats and species has grown substantially. This includes communities interested in nature recovery taking ownership of land, especially in Scotland. Effective grassroots campaigns have resulted in environmental literacy becoming more mainstream, and there is an increased interest in existing legal mechanisms, as well as developing future legal frameworks that are derived from ‘Rights for Nature’.
The gap between rural and urban society is increasing, and media coverage around nature and climate activism is becoming more binary and divisive.
The Community Wealth Building Act (2026) in Scotland obligates public bodies to ensure that wealth is generated, circulated, and retained directly within communities and links directly to local ecological sustainability. The National Curriculum in England and Wales now includes nature restoration and nature connectedness.
Home
About
Executive summary
However, private finance has been slow to develop, and nature-friendly farmers and land managers have been frustrated and antagonised by a perceived antifarmer narrative and the erratic roll-out of agri-environment schemes. Some traditional rural farming communities continue to feel their culture is threatened by the growing movement towards destocking and ‘rewilding’.
Right: Snorkeler putting a native oyster bese bag into place on a reef © Seawilding Seawilding is a community-led native oyster and seagrass restoration project. Located in Loch Craignish, Argyll and Loch Broom, Wester Ross, their aim is to restore lost biodiversity, sequester carbon, create green jobs and mentor other community-based groups to do the same. They are also a member of the Coastal Communities Network, a communityled network of local groups committed to the preservation and safeguarding of Scotland’s coastal and marine environments.
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 31
Key Findings 6. Enabling restoration
Blockers
Levers for change
• A challenging funding environment is a significant blocker to the restoration of species and habitats that continue to be damaged by systemic issues in food production and farming. PostBrexit farming subsidies have been highly politicised and roll-out has been inconsistent, reducing farmer confidence. Government funding is often awarded on annual cycles, when nature restoration requires long-term, stable support. Philanthropic funding is highly competitive and short-term, often focusing on capital costs rather than revenue for coordination and core costs. • The funding that does exist is overly complex and bureaucratic, slowing uptake and excluding smaller actors. Long-term funding is required to support well-trained, experienced and motivated staff who are crucial to building trust with communities and facilitating positive change.
Home
About
Executive summary
We need systems change and funding that allows this to happen e.g. funding a ‘bundle’ of work across separate organisations to ensure true collaboration.” • Harmful narratives – politicians and the media seek to present the environment as a barrier to economic growth and development. Powerful vested interests do not represent the interests or views of wider communities.
The sector is crowded and somewhat distracted by lots of private sector middle-man actors, with extraction-based business models which require a financial return, trying to ‘crack’ the financialisation of nature.” • Poorly designed policy – policies are not designed to maximise the scale of delivery. For example, Biodiversity Net Gain overuses exemptions and fails to combine offsite mitigation to maximise impact.
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
• Large-scale and often multi sector collaborations are key to enabling the restoration of species and habitats. Landscape-scale change, including developments in nature-friendly farming and agroforestry, needs strong leadership from place-based intermediaries who are trusted by local communities. Farming and environmental payments have huge potential when supported by consistent funding and experienced advisors.
Post-Brexit farming schemes – the demand is now there from farming, just needs funding and longevity.” There is a huge lack of paid entry level roles for young people – particularly those from backgrounds not typically represented in the conservation sector.” • Community power and access to nature – there is an increasing interest from communities in restoring and Recommendations
Appendix
accessing nature. Also, a recognition of the links between restoring habitats in ways that improve health and wellbeing, sense of place and local economy. Improving ocean literacy and climate literacy is a priority, and this includes work in urban areas to increase tree planting, support community growing and foster a deeper connection to nature.
There is a lack of intersectional work, and justice focus within nature restoration.” • A broader recognition of the wider benefits of nature restoration and the need for a different approach to safeguard services like clean water, reduced flood risk, improved wellbeing.
There is now more evidence that prioritising nature (rewilding) works in practice and delivers ecological, social and economic benefits.”
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 32
Key Findings 6. Enabling restoration
Impact of Esmée’s support
Specific impacts include:
Esmée’s funding has supported a number of place-based models of restoration. These include large scale and multisector partnerships (such as Nature North, Weald to Waves, Tir Canol and Sussex Bay), community led work (e.g. Langholm, Tayvallich, and Community of Arran Seabed Trust), nature finance pilots (for example the IRNS programme in Scotland) and farmer led work, such as the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s work with their Environmental Farmers Groups. This supports organisations to become more effective as organisations, through internal reviews and training for staff and trustees. It funds community engagement, joint planning, and public awareness-raising as well as the coordination of projects to establish evidence of new concepts on the ground. The flexible nature of the funding means that new, unexpected strands of work can be explored, including collaborations with other organisations, and wider representation for communities. Home
About
Executive summary
• 500 people attending a single conference on ‘evidence in conservation’. • Supporting a network of 32 fledgling community groups round coastal Scotland to monitor and restore their biodiversity. • Demonstrating proof of concept with seagrass translocation and oyster farm establishment. • Supporting 954 rewilding projects in UK, of which 28 are marine covering 506km2. Latest project to join covers 7,500ha in Scotland.
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Without Esmée’s long-term core contribution to the staff time and activities required to actively support the formation and development of the Coastal Communities Network, it would not exist – and the community conservation sector in Scotland would lack a fundamental platform and voice, representing 40 coastal community groups and hundreds of people.” Esmée funding for the Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum has been critical in building the enabling conditions – evidence, partnerships and community engagement –that create the Foundation for longerterm, scalable change across land, freshwater and the coast”
Recommendations
Appendix
The funding Esmée has given that we spent on a Community Engagement Manager and Learning and Sharing Manager last financial year resulted in engagement with: 295 people from underserved backgrounds, 999 young people, 1,539 event attendees, 265 volunteers” Esmée Funding has allowed Tir Canol to rebuild trust with local farmers and communities after the failure of Summit to Sea. Without 4-year funding the programme wouldn’t have had the space to deliver on the blueprint or develop the governance to move forward. The sensitivity and understanding of the funders have given us the flexibility to be iterative and pivot when necessary, and take the work slowly as needed.”
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 33
Esmée as a funder The majority of Esmée’s support is in grant funding. However, they also make social investments (repayable finance), and have a Tools budget for activities where they have a more proactive role such as convening and connecting organisations, and commissioning research or other consultancy support.
Overview of Esmée’s funding and support Chart 1: Active funding where space for nature is the primary priority Tool £394k, 11 tools Social Investment £14.0m, 14 investments
Lots of the work Esmée supports contributes to more than one of their 13 funding priorities. For internal purposes, Esmée classifies work under a primary priority, and a secondary priority if appropriate.
Total
The following charts focus on Esmée’s ‘active’ portfolio – meaning all active funding relationships that we have as of August 2026.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Main Grant £23.4m, 96 grants
£37.7m
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 34
Esmée as a funder
Below: The Allt Mor, River Gynach, above Kingussie in the Scottish Highlands © Spey Catchment Initiative
Chart 2: Active funding where space for nature is a secondary priority in addition to contributing to another of Esmée’s funding priorities. These are reflected as the primary priority for Esmée’s purposes.
The Spey Catchment Initiative works towards a sustainable, climate resilient and thriving natural environment for wildlife and communities throughout the Spey Catchment.
Primary priority £3.8m
Nature friendly farming
£3.3m
Freshwater Fishing in tandem with nature
£1.9m
Community driven enterprise and regeneration
£1.0m £942k
Peat Communities working together for change
£612k
Racial Justice
£494k
Funder collaboration and accountability
£475k
Community-led art and creativity
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
£230k
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
At Allt Mor, they led an extensive project to stabilise eroding hillsides that are generating large volumes of sediment input to the river. This sediment subsequently gets washed-down and collates under bridges that causes flooding problems for the town of Kingussie down below.
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 35
Esmée as a funder
Stakeholder feedback on working with Esmée • Esmée were universally praised for their flexible, thoughtful approach to funding, and their simple application and reporting requirements. Unrestricted, multiyear funding, and active support to build organisational resilience and development are considered vital and transformative, and rarely found amongst other funders.
Esmée is a leader in UK funding – giving larger grants, for longer periods of time, with a light management touch.” • Organisations particularly value the experienced, knowledgeable grant managers who are highly skilled and well-informed in environmental issues.
Home
About
Executive summary
• Organisations highlighted that Esmée The key contact brings up brought added value in addition to all the key questions that the funding – access to wider networks, Esmée Board will bring up, so you strategic direction, and linking to can finesse your application and other projects for mutual benefit. ensure it succeeds. As opposed to • Organisations valued that Esmée’s other funders you feel that you’re policy on Diversity, Equality, and dealing with people who understand Inclusion has helped lever positive nature conservation and that your change with trustees and staff, and knowledge and ability to deliver improved recruitment policies, is trusted.” triggering a wider positive shift in • Particularly praised was Esmée’s willingness to identify proactively where work needed to be done in the environmental sphere, and to find and approach organisations that could effect change.
Esmée identified that I ‘filled a gap’ in their portfolio covering chemicals and agreed to support my charity to plug that gap…Most funding bodies don’t take the time to do that; they simply respond to bids and can be ‘hoodwinked’ by established and experienced bidders.”
Context overview
Key findings
the sector as a whole.
I really welcome the levels of care and leadership Esmée demonstrate e.g. (1) the unprompted unrestricted 10% Covid grant, (2) Funding Plus and (3) leadership on EDI with the RACE report prerequisite.”
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 36
Esmée as a funder
Where organisations are struggling • Political inertia across Westminster and the devolved administrations has hampered progress in the restoration of species and habitats. Governments have failed to follow through on commitments ranging from Marine Protected Areas to Post-Brexit farming payments and annual government funding cycles impede action on the ground.
Targeting public funding for public good has been difficult because of strong and vocal lobbying for other sectors on land and at sea.” • Progress with private finance have been slower than anticipated which has further impacted farmer and landowner confidence. • It has been difficult to shift the narrative with key economic stakeholders – some organisations suggested that environmental restoration would need to use new approaches with decision makers and governments.
Home
About
Executive summary
It has been very challenging to land the narrative that nature is a driver of resilience and economic growth with key economic stakeholders e.g. Bank of England, HM Treasury, Department of Business and Trade – we need to be thinking about other strategies and other routes of influence e.g. social/political pressure.” • Capacity and prioritisation within organisations, especially when faced with tight deadlines for government consultations and new legislation. There was a recognition that time and skills are required to enable collaboration in the sector, which is crucial to achieving systemic environmental change.
It takes time, or more capacity, to build consensus and sometimes we simply do not have sufficient time, which weakens our sector.”
Context overview
Key findings
• Pay in the 3rd sector lags behind the private sector, and work is often on a short-term contract basis, making it difficult to recruit and retain staff. Prioritising workloads can be a challenge, with organisations struggling to balance defensive actions and advocating for change with building resilient organisational structures.
Over the next 18 months there is an open door to push for alignment with higher EU environmental standards, but not enough funders (beyond Esmée) recognise this to support the handful of groups working on this.” • Some organisations felt that they particularly lacked internal communications and advocacy expertise, and that they struggled to access support from trusts and foundations that they perceived as being “closed” to new applications for funding.
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 37
Esmée as a funder
What more could Esmée do? Be more proactive with other funders
Continue to promote Funding Plus
Organisations felt that receiving a grant from Esmée gave them legitimacy with other funders, which was very welcome. They thought there were opportunities for Esmée to expand on this by taking a more proactive approach with other funders and by working to persuade them of the benefits of being more agile, long-term and innovative through their philanthropic work. Continuity of support was raised as a risk, with some organisations concerned about the unsustainability of Esmée funding work that should be undertaken by government.
Funding Plus is a widely praised “additional” grant offered to organisations to carry out internal capacity-building work through training, advice or strategic planning. Organisations suggested that additional benefits could be gained by working more collaboratively with other organisations to share learning and experiences in the Funding Plus area.
Esmée’s approach to the robust use of evidence to support advocacy and policy has influenced other funders to take a similar approach, and it was felt that Esmée could take more of a leadership role in the funding community generally, and advocate more strongly for the causes they support.
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Support rejected applicants Organisations would also like more detailed feedback when applications were unsuccessful. One suggestion was that unsuccessful applicants could be signposted to other funding streams, or supported in ways other than direct financial backing – such as mentoring or networking.
Continue to be more transparent
Optimise reporting guidelines
Some organisations felt that Esmée could be clearer at articulating its priorities under this aim, describing what the Foundation is looking to fund in the remaining years of its strategy and sharing more detail on the current portfolio and learning.
The quality of progress reports and end-of-grant reports from organisations is generally high. These are supplemented by a mid-grant and end of grant learning call with Esmée funding managers. Organisations value the Foundation’s light-touch reporting requirements. However, in line with its funding work to help the sector make better use of data and evidence, the team could consider what more it can do to help organisations increase quality and consistency of quantifying impact (where this is proportionate and valuable to quantify).
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 38
Esmée as a funder
Bringing funded organisations together This is the first review where Esmée has used facilitated workshops extensively with organisations to inform the evaluation.
These ideas broadly split into two types of gathering:
. Informal networking opportunities:
Previous reviews have focused on 1:1 interviews and a validation workshop at the end of the review. It was clear just how much the organisations appreciated the chance to get together as like-minded organisations. Sharing opinions, learning about progress and making new connections between them were all cited as important. For smaller organisations the intangible sense of ‘not being alone’ was very motivating. Many organisations suggested that the Foundation could take a more active convening role.
Home
About
Executive summary
Organisations who want to attend can share ideas and learn more about the work of other organisations. Functionally this potentially looks and feels like a ‘coffee morning’ where connections are loose and devolved. Only light touch organisation and facilitation would be needed.
Targeted outcome-driven meetings and workshops to progress a specific topic: Functionally this looks more like a traditional workshop to tackle a specific subject or obstacle, or where organisations with a common purpose might work to amplify each other’s work to create a more effective collective effort, joint funding bid, or request from government. Stronger design and facilitation would be required to make these productive meetings.
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Geographically focussed work was also an area where workshops could usefully examine barriers to restoration and how to overcome them through collaboration, for example in particular catchments, counties, or across the devolved administrations of the UK. It was suggested that the four Environment Link Networks could have a useful role here. Groups based around peer support and mentoring would help develop essential staff skills, especially for smaller organisations. Organisations felt there was a useful role for Esmée in connecting organisations with similar challenges or that had encountered and overcome difficulties who could act as informal mentors for each other. This could be a lightly facilitated group that meets online, maybe 3-4 times a year, to discuss a particular issue such as HR, databases or resolving conflict.
Recommendations
Appendix
There was a strong conviction that eNGOs need to amplify their voices across the sector to be able to make a case for the environment, in the face of corporate lobbying and an increasingly challenging global context. By light-touch convening of their portfolio, Esmée could have a role to play in this without necessarily duplicating any of the liaison work that organisations do.
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 39
Recommendations These recommendations are made in the context of the funding constraints that currently exist. Habitat and species work continues to receive a relatively small proportion of environment-based philanthropic funding. However, Esmée are a significant funder in the environmental world, sitting in the top six philanthropic funders of “green grants” in the UK.3
3 w ww.greenfunders.org/resources/
where-the-green-grants-went-9
3 Environmental Funders Network:
Where the green grants went, July 2026
Home
About
Executive summary
1. Continue to fund work on policy and advocacy, finance, data and evidence and chemicals – sustaining work largely unfunded elsewhere through the Foundation’s rare flexible, long-term, unrestricted model. Esmée support work in the environmental field that is largely not funded elsewhere. This has been crucial to delivering significant legal protections for nature postBrexit, holding governments to account, supporting communities and partnerships, and delivering progress in less-funded areas like peatland and chemical pollution. The flexible, long-term, generous and unrestricted model of funding is transformative to organisations and rare among other funders.
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
2. Convene funded organisations Esmée could convene them in two ways. Firstly, informal “coffee-morning” type meetings, which could take place at regular intervals, online. These would enable organisations to connect with each other and learn more about each other’s work. Secondly, more focused workshops to address a current obstacle or geographically relevant issue – these would require facilitation around an agenda with the aim of producing defined outcomes. Topics could be suggested by grant managers, and a selected group of organisations invited to choose the one they considered most relevant to them.
Recommendations
Appendix
3. Support more rapid implementation and delivery The UK now has stronger targets and frameworks than it did five years ago, albeit not as ambitious as the science demands in certain areas. But delivery and enforcement remain weak. Esmée already play a role in supporting innovative models of delivery as well as supporting work on law, citizen science, community campaign and action. Further work in this area may increase delivery of existing policies and provide greater accountability.
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 40
Recommendations
4. Grow support for community-led restoration and the
conditions that make this possible, including considering through an environmental justice lens.
Home
About
Executive summary
5. Defend the environmental narrative Climate and nature are increasingly framed against growth, and environmental action is facing more hostility. That suggests a stronger role for narrative work, trusted messengers, community-led approaches, and clearer evidence of the social and economic benefits of restoration.
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
6. Advocate more strongly for better funding models The Foundation is widely respected as an effective and experienced funder whose organisations achieve notable impacts. Importantly, Esmée provides multi-year support for core revenue costs – an approach that remains rare among philanthropic funders and is often overlooked in government funding models. Advocating for a shift in funding policy to include revenue costs and the facility for multi-year projects would create a healthier and more effective environmental Third Sector. In addition, Esmée could highlight to government and other funders when their internal funding priorities change, signposting them to organisations through which good work could continue to be supported.
Recommendations
Appendix
7. Build a broader cross-sector coalition for nature recovery Esmée has been very effective at supporting early-stage innovation and systems thinking, but the sector is now entering a phase where we need to move from policy and pilots to delivery at scale and the embedding of nature thinking across public and private institutions. Learning shows that this will require funding models and partnerships that support cross-sector knowledge-sharing – between land managers, businesses, public bodies, communities, investors and environmental organisations
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 41
Recommendations
8. Expand the Land Purchase Facility
9. Provide further guidance on funding criteria
A Land Purchase Facility exists to allow certain organisations to purchase land with a loan from the Foundation, before raising funds through other grants and appeals to pay for it within a 2-year window. This is commended for being a rare and transformative funding source, and some would welcome its expansion to a wider range of eligible organisations and sites and to enable larger scale land acquisition.
Esmée is part of a group of funders committed to open and trusting grant-making, a campaign coordinated by the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (IVAR)4. the Foundation’s flexible, light-touch approach is hugely valued by organisations, but some would welcome more clarity on what work is eligible. This is particularly the case within the first Space for Nature outcome, which has a broad remit. Providing further guidance on Esmée’s priorities in this area and information on the existing portfolio will give applicants greater clarity.
In addition, the Foundation could proactively consider different mechanisms for applications – for example, specific calls for proposals windowed applications for discrete strands of work, rather than an open award period, which may help organisations to see themselves as potential applicants. Clear explanations on the rationale behind shifts in priorities would be helpful to both funded organisations and applicants. 4 Institute for Voluntary Action Research:
Open and trusting grant-making
4 w ww.ivar.org.uk/open-and-trusting
Home
About
Executive summary
Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix
10. Share learning and insights from funded organisations Esmée could use its communications channels to share more about the work being funded – for example, this could include guest blogs and hosting webinars.
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 42
Appendix 1. Approach and methods
2. Contributing organisations
The report is informed by a desk-based review of 40 grants from 29 funded organisations, online workshops, and one-to-one interviews with the Esmée team. Outside of the quotes, the opinions expressed in the report are those of the authors and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.
Argyll Countryside Trust
Green Finance Institute
Scottish Wildlife Trust
Avon Needs Trees
Heal Rewilding
Seawilding
Borders Forest Trust
Institute for European Environmental Policy UK
Spey Catchment Initiative
To maximise the opportunities for feedback from organisations, online workshops were held for each of the ‘six themes’. A separate online whiteboard was used for each workshop, to enable participants to provide their own contributions. Verbal comments during workshop discussions were transcribed by a facilitator.
Broadway Initiative
56 people from 50 organisations attended 7 workshops, with over 1250 contributions on the whiteboards.
Fauna and Flora International
After a draft of this report was produced, a validation workshop was also held with the wider Esmée team to check and refine the content.
Breckland Farmers Wildlife Network British Trust for Ornithology Bumblebee Conservation
Lancashire Wildlife Trust NatureFinance
Cambridge University Campaign for National Parks
North Wales Wildlife Trust
Defra
Northern Ireland Environment Link
Earthwatch
About
Executive summary
Findhorn, Nairn and Lossie Rivers Trust Foundation for Common Land Game and Wildlife Conservancy Trust
Key findings
Open Seas Rewilding Britain
Forth Rivers Trust
Context overview
Northern Ireland Marine Task Force Northumberland Wildlife Trust
Finance Innovation Lab
RSPB Scotland: The Big Picture Scottish Environment LINK
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Ulster Wildlife Trust WildFish
North Sea Wildlife Trusts
Crichton Carbon Centre
Ullswater Catchment Management CIC Wales Environment Link
Nature North North Pennines National Landscape
Cranfield University
The Environment Agency The Lifescape Project
Knepp Wildland Foundation
Green Alliance
Home
IUCN UK
Appendix
WWF Young Wilders
Space for Nature Esmée Fairbairn Foundation strategy review 43
Appendix 3. Image credits Front cover: Esmée staff visit to the Weald to Waves project © Knepp Wildland Foundation; Underwater scene with fish swimming near rocks and seagrass © WildFish Page 3: Wildlife tour with Nick Patel at Heal Somerset © Tom Francome for Heal Rewilding Page 4: Two people planting in a mountainous landscape with Borders Forest Trust © A. Monaghan
Page 13: Two people listening and talking in a coracle as part of North Wales Wildlife Trust’s Coracle Conversations © www.markmcnulty.co.uk
Page 27: Illustration highlighting how chemical pollutants from human activities make their way into the environment from © CHEM Trust
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
Page 14: Close up of a hare © Andrew Parkinson / WWF-UK; Wild Ennerdale visitors © Alex Hyde/Rewilding Britain
Page 39: Group of people in hi-vis vests monitoring Bidwell Brook as part of SmartRivers © WildFish
020 7812 3700 info@Esméefairbairn.org.uk
Page 15: Rewilding Britain at Restore Nature Now © Alex Lester
Page 30: Snorkeler putting a native oyster bese bag into place on a reef © Seawilding
Page 18: Puffins on the Farnes Islands © Ruth Chambers for Green Alliance Page 19: NIMTF member meeting © Ulster Wildlife Trust
Page 5: Young people in hi-vis vests show their monitoring work with Earthwatch © Yoke Creative; Goldfinch on a tree © Jen Vickers for Heal Rewilding
Page 21: Diver swimming underwater on the Orkney Snorkel Trail © Alison Moore for Scotland Wildlife Trust
Page 6: Seal popping their head above the water © Matt Horwood/WWF-UK Page 8: Group of people on Bellever Tor in Dartmoor as part of Campaign for National Parks’ Future Leaders Course © Harriet Gardiner
Page 24: The team smiling after installing sheep’s wool bunds to help restore an eroding area of peat © Crichton Carbon Centre Page 26: Group of people in hi-vis vests on a peatland © Argyll and the Isles Coast and Countryside Trust
Page 9: Buff tailed bumblebee on an aster © Bumblebee Conservation Trust
About
Executive summary
www.esmeefairbairn.org.uk Registered charity 200051
Page 34: The Allt Mor, River Gynach, above Kingussie in the Scottish Highlands. © Spey Catchment Initiative Page 35: Kingfisher on a tree © Abi Rowley for Heal Rewilding Page 36: People planting trees in the Western Bloc © Avon Needs Trees Page 38: People in a hall for an event on peatland © Argyll and the Isles Coast and Countryside Trust Page 39: Close up of ferns and moss © Findhorn, Nairn and Lossie Rivers Trust Page 40: A person working on a river by a green hillside © Findhorn, Nairn, and Lossie Rivers Trust Page 41: Wild Tolworth volunteers © Alex Hyde/Rewilding Britain
Page 11: Fish swimming by a crab © Seawilding
Home
210 Pentonville Rd London N1 9JY
Design: Steers McGillan Eves Context overview
Key findings
Esmée as a funder
Recommendations
Appendix