Building confidence in nature repair markets: connecting supply and demand

The supply and demand gap

The nature repair industry is growing rapidly. On the supply side, landholders, regional bodies and other project developers never have enough funding to implement their backlog of projects that restore ecosystems, improve soils, protect biodiversity, engage rural communities and First Nations groups. On the demand side, corporations are signalling their desire to demonstrate measurable progress against net-zero, biodiversity, and ESG commitments. There is a clear oversupply of potential nature repair projects and an unmet demand from the private sector, so why do supply and demand often struggle to connect? Private investment is driven by risk. Environmental markets for nature repair are perceived as high risk because they lack a robust, consistent, and trusted way of comparing and reporting outcomes.

The most significant private investment into nature is via the $157B/y (2025) impact investment industry. These investments are concentrated on green bonds, real assets (farms with environmental outcomes) and carbon markets. Very little goes to nature repair more broadly despite a desire for biodiversity and social outcomes.

The problem with current approaches

Today’s nature repair industry is difficult to engage with because of four key barriers:

• Inconsistent metrics: Other than carbon, there are no consistent measures of project outcomes, making comparison difficult.
• High transaction costs: Verifying and reporting outcomes consumes investment that should go into on-ground action.
• Lack of confidence: The private sector avoids risk, so it hesitates to invest when there is uncertainty about outcomes being real (additional), comparable, or long-lasting.
• Misaligned investment scale: Institutional investors such as superannuation funds are seeking large, scalable environmental projects—not fragmented, one-off initiatives.

Without a common language, supply and demand fail to meet—leaving money on the sidelines and worthy projects underfunded.

Why a consistent science-based currency matters

The solution is not just more projects or more buyers, but risk reduction via a consistent currency of measurement that works across environmental, social, cultural, and economic outcomes.
Such a currency must be:

• Science-based – grounded in credible data and modelling.
• Standardised – enabling comparable results across projects, regions, and time.
• Transparent – allowing both suppliers and buyers to see and trust what’s being reported.

This allows nature repair outcomes (carbon, water quality, biodiversity, social, First Nations) to be presented in common units of value between projects.

Lowering transaction costs, building trust

With a robust currency in place:

• Suppliers gain efficiency. Landholders, regional bodies and other project developers can apply the same approach and metrics for defining outcomes across many projects.
• Buyers gain confidence. Private and public investors and governments can compare projects side-by-side and have confidence in their purchases.
• Markets gain scale. Consistent measures of outcomes allow for project aggregation to produce larger scale opportunities, which in turn provides efficiency in project delivery.

Just as carbon credits created a recognised unit for climate markets, a consistent natural capital currency is essential to unlock scale for nature repair markets.

Connecting supply to demand

By embedding science-driven, standardised measures into investment frameworks, we can:

• Create transparency that reassures buyers.
• Build comparability that strengthens competition and efficiency.
• Generate trust that allows the market to scale.

When suppliers know their work will be fairly valued and buyers can verify they’re investing in credible, measurable improvements, the full potential of the nature repair industry can be realised.

The gap between supply and demand in the nature repair industry isn’t about lack of will. It’s about a lack of confidence.