Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund – UK

The NEIRF is supporting the development of 86 projects across England as a result of 2 previous funding rounds. This third round is specifically to support farmers in accessing nature markets, as committed to by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) ministers.

The NEIRF is a competitive grants scheme providing grants to support the development of nature projects in England that:

• help farmers achieve one or more natural environmental outcomes from the Environmental Improvement Plan
• have the ability to help farmers produce revenue from ecosystem services to attract and repay investment
• produce an investment model that can be scaled up and reproduced by farmers

Proposals should focus on generating revenue from ecosystem services alongside food production, rather than producing revenue through the sale of goods or commodities. Examples of ecosystem services that could produce revenue include:

• selling carbon units from woodland creation or peatland restoration, using the Woodland Carbon Code or Peatland Code
• selling biodiversity units from a habitat bank, using the Natural England biodiversity offsetting metric
• selling ‘catchment services’ (such as improved water quality and natural flood management benefits) resulting from natural environment improvements

The grants are to help farmers to:

• get support from professional advisors to develop your project, address barriers to investment and present an attractive case for potential investors
• build capability to attract financial investment into natural environment projects
• develop a market for ecosystem services (such as investment or trading platforms, codes for verifying benefits, aggregator vehicles)

They will expect you to make the products and knowledge gained through the fund openly available for the benefit of others. This is to help the development of:

• the natural capital investment sector
• policy and regulation, including alignment with future government funding schemes

Funding Information

• You can apply for a grant of between £10,000 and £100,000.

Geographical Scope of NEIRF grants

• The fund is for activities in England. It may fund activities to prepare projects where benefits apply across borders with Wales or Scotland – this will be based on the environmental benefits to England.
• Projects must protect or enhance the domestic natural environment in line with one or more of the Environmental Improvement Plan goals in the context of the following natural capital asset types:
  • peri-urban (areas of transition from rural to urban land uses))
  • enclosed farmland
  • mountain, moor and heathland
  • freshwaters and wetlands
  • woodland
  • coastal margins
  • semi-natural grassland
• Funded activities should be completed within one calendar year, but they may allow longer grant periods. Funded activities should not begin before you receive your grant award and must be completed by 31 March 2026.

Eligibility Criteria

• You can apply for a grant if you are a farmer or farmer-led group.
• If you are a non-farming not for profit organisation, charity, non-governmental organisation (NGO), public body or business, you can only apply for a grant if one or both of the following apply:
  • you can provide evidence that it will directly support farmers to access nature markets
  • you have significant farmer representation in your partnership
• You cannot apply for a grant if you are:
  • not a farmer or not directly helping farmers to access nature markets
  • a central government department or one of their executive agencies
  • a non-departmental public body
• But those organisations can be partners in bids. If so, you will need to show which staff are partners in a grant application.
• You must prove that you’re eligible when you apply.

For more information, visit Environment Agency.