Share and communicate learning from the Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FINRS) programme through the Community of Practice throughout 2024/25.
Objective 5: Invest in nature
Priority Action 25. Establish a values-led, high-integrity market for responsible private investment in natural capital.
The Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS) programme supports the development of nature projects that can attract public and private finance. NatureScot, in collaboration with the National Lottery Heritage Fund, facilitates a Community of Practice (CoP) to share learning between FIRNS participants and wider stakeholders involved in nature finance and project development.
Published materials confirm several delivery activities within this programme, including a webinar in February 2025 providing updates on the third round of FIRNS and associated funding opportunities. An insights report covering FIRNS Rounds 1 and 2, produced by Social Investment Scotland and AchieveGood, summarises learning on project design, investment readiness, and early-stage outcomes. In addition, events organised with the Scottish Forum on Natural Capital, NatureScot, and the University of Edinburgh have focused on natural capital finance and investment approaches, supporting knowledge exchange across the sector.
Overall, FIRNS is operating as a learning and capacity-building programme, focused on improving the quality and readiness of nature projects for investment rather than directly delivering restoration at scale.
FIRNS contributes indirectly to ecological outcomes by improving the ability of organisations to design and deliver investment-ready nature restoration projects. This can help increase future delivery of habitat restoration, peatland recovery, woodland creation, and wider biodiversity projects. By improving knowledge sharing and project development capacity, the programme supports conditions that may lead to greater investment in nature recovery over time. However, the Community of Practice itself is primarily focused on learning and capacity building rather than direct restoration delivery, so ecological benefits are indirect and not yet evidenced at scale.
NatureScot – Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS)
NatureScot – FIRNS Round 3 information
Social Investment Scotland – Partnership in Action: Insights from the FIRNS Gathering
Promote the natural capital market framework to foster responsible, values-led private investment in nature while delivering benefits to local communities. It will do this by providing guidance to investors, land managers, and other stakeholders, offering tools and resources to develop sustainable projects.
Publish a Biodiversity Investment Plan for Scotland by the end of 2024 that contains actions to: support a range of finance mechanisms; promote value for money; and develop biodiversity markets in Scotland.
Public funding streams that contribute to nature restoration will be designed in a way that they can be matched or blended with private finance or investment. - New ways of using available Peatland Action funding to leverage other sources of finance for peatland restoration will be tested from 2025/26. - New approaches to further increase the level of private investment in woodland…
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