How to successfully take your nature project to market

Fri, 01 May 2026 13:32:18 GMT

The UK nature market is evolving at pace. Corporate demand for nature is rising, policy frameworks are maturing, and private finance is starting to unlock through mechanisms such as biodiversity credits and carbon markets.

Yet despite this momentum, finance is still not freely flowing. Some projects don’t secure corporate buyers in time: deals fall apart, investors walk away and years of work can be lost. There is no denying that there are a number of challenging external factors at play. But some projects are securing funding, which begs the question: do you have an effective go-to-market strategy? Are you truly market ready?

The focus around nature finance is typically on project development, land, and ecological outcomes. But the hard truth is that great nature projects don’t just sell themselves - and therein can lie a critical skills gap: the ability to translate nature projects into compelling, market-ready propositions and sell these to the relevant audience.

Often undervalued, marketing has a vital role to play in funding nature.

The final step in attracting buyers and investors to your nature project is about identifying and understanding your audience, reaching them, telling them your story, showing them how it aligns with their needs and building a relationship on which to build a deal or partnership.

Corporate demand for nature and nature-based solutions is still building. You have an active role to play in this, by reaching across to your prospective buyers to understand their challenges, explore with them how you can help to overcome these, and help them build their knowledge of nature.

Navigating an emerging market

Nature is climbing rapidly up the business agenda, driven by frameworks such as TNFD and SBTN , al ongside growing corporate commitments to net zero and nature outcomes. At the same time, the UK nature market is developing distinct sub-markets - biodiversity net gain, nutrient neutrality, peatland carbon, and woodland carbon - each with its own regulatory context, measurement approach, and buyer profile.

This complexity creates both opportunity and risk. For project developers, understanding the nuances of each sub-market and which market your work is best suited to is essential. But understanding alone is not enough. Success increasingly depends on how effectively projects are positioned, communicated, and sold.

Understanding the marketing fundamentals

At its core, marketing is about aligning organisational aims with audience needs. Traditional methodologies such as the “Four P’s” - product, price, place, promotion - remain highly relevant. In the context of nature markets, this translates into key questions:

What is the product? Consider what you are providing e.g. carbon credits, biodiversity units or wider ecosystem services; and what your long term customer service and reporting promise is over the life-time of the contract in addition to the units and any co-benefits.
How is the product priced? Consider the wider market and competitor pricing both in the UK and globally, co-benefits your project offers, and what is unique about your project that drives value.
Where and how is it accessed by buyers? Consider if you have the resources, brand recognition and skills to go to market directly, or whether a buyers club or an enabler/selling platform might be more appropriate.
How are you going to communicate with your target audience to sell your product and meet your aims? Consider how to define your target audience, proposition, messaging, content and channels through which to reach them.

The additional three P’s of marketing - people, processes, and physical evidence - highlight the importance of credibility, delivery capability, and tangible proof points in building trust.

This is particularly important in nature markets, where buyers are often navigating uncertainty and scrutiny. They are not just purchasing units; they are investing in outcomes, reputations, and long-term impact that they will need to report on over the lifetime of any contract they enter into.

From audience awareness to nature action

Your marketing will need to guide your audience through a structured journey: from awareness, to interest, desire, and action.

This is where many projects fall short. Technical expertise and ecological value are necessary, but they do not automatically translate into buyer engagement. You must continuously build your narrative - layer by layer - helping potential buyers to understand not just what the project does, but why it matters to them. The corporate decision-making process can be complex and long. Only when there is a clear business case that meets budget and has full sign off can a company take action and ‘buy’ your offering.

Taking a company on this journey requires a shift from project-centric thinking to audience-centric thinking.

A structured approach to becoming market ready

At Leadertree we have developed an end-to-end marketing approach that can be applied whole, or in part, to nature projects and organisations alike. It begins with market research and audience insight to inform your proposition. From there, the focus moves to proposition development - defining the core story, messaging, and value proposition. This is followed by strategy and planning, where content, channels, campaign and partnership approaches are mapped out. Finally, delivery brings the strategy to life through content, communications, and business development activity.

Creating compelling nature communications for buyers is the art of distilling complex ecological and financial data into authentic, engaging and jargon-free stories that make sense on a business and personal level. Science Based Targets Networ

Importantly, this is not a one-off exercise. Effective market engagement requires ongoing communication, relationship-building, and iteration.

From nature projects to propositions

Ultimately, bringing a nature project to market requires a shift in mindset, and accessing specialist skills. Project developers need to think like and value marketers, storytellers, and business developers, just as much as ecologists and land managers.

The opportunity is significant. As the UK nature market continues to mature, those who can combine strong projects with strong market engagement will be best placed to succeed.

The challenge is equally clear. Building demand, establishing credibility, and driving action require deliberate, strategic effort.

But for those willing to embrace marketing, the rewards extend beyond individual projects. They will contribute to the growth of a functioning, scalable nature market - one capable of delivering the environmental outcomes that are urgently needed.

Case study: UK Nature Carbon Project Campaign

Leadertree recently supported UK National Parks and Palladium with the development and management of a corporate lead generation campaign, featuring their 1,000 ha Woodland Carbon Project in the South Downs National Park .

The campaign combined UK nature carbon thought leadership with targeted outreach, using articles and video to address key audience questions and establish credibility. A knowledge-sharing series positioned the project within the broader global carbon context, while a roundtable event created a focal point for engagement around the South Downs Woodland Carbon Project.

The results were tangible: strong email open rates, high-quality event participation, and meaningful conversion into meetings.

The lesson is clear. Effective marketing is not about volume; it is about relevance, insight, and consistency.

Authored by Stephanie Walker, Founder and Director of Leadertree Consulting, a sustainability, marketing and insight consultancy specialising in nature and biodiversity.

If you'd value an informal conversation about marketing for your nature project or organis ation, get in touch .

The hidden Achilles heel of achieving investment readiness for nature-based solutions

183:798753392 (Stephanie Walker) — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 12:44:03 GMT

Amidst the excitement at the opportunity presented by natural capital investment and the Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund (NEIRF), is the daunting prospect of actually getting nature-based solutions to the point of investment readiness.

How will you do it? What skills are needed and who needs to be involved? How will you create the financial and environmental returns in a reasonable time frame to satisfy investors and your own aims? How will you demonstrate the environmental benefits? There are scant examples to learn from – true innovation and brave hearts are required.

As you plan for how to make your project investment ready, you will no doubt be lining up the very best and most creative environmental experts, project managers and specialist financiers that you can.

But there is one other critical, but perhaps unexpected area you need to consider – and that is communications. With your stakeholders, and with potential investors.

Creating and launching a brand new financial product for the first time will require a huge leap of faith for your senior stakeholders. They are likely expert in the environment and business, not investment finance. Though this is all new to you as well, you will need to take them with you on the journey, taking the time to understand their views and the potential barriers to achieving their buy-in, winning them over each step of the way. Don’t expect an easy ride – you may experience resistance from some leaders to venture away from the safety of known funding routes. This is very real communications challenge.

Equally, most investors are new to the concept of natural capital investment. It is coming up the agenda fast as the markets recognise the huge opportunity it presents, but nature-based solutions are the least well understood and tend to offer the lowest financial returns so present the biggest risk. Bold and charitably-minded investors are needed to get the market established. Your investors will be some of the first in the world to invest in nature-based investment products. But who are they, how will you reach them and how will you persuade them to invest? Which investors will your product be attractive to? Will turning the environment into business rather than feel good and tax saving charity work, turn off some high net worth and family office contacts you have?

Sensitive market research and a careful exploration of what motivates investors to support environmental projects will be needed. You will need to use this to inform a clear and compelling story to communicate your environmental offer, pitched at the right level for investors savvier in finance than yourself. You will need to test your product with potential investors before it is launched, with the hope that you may even secure some investment before your product goes to the wider market, thus building confidence. Build in lots of time to listen to their views, adapt and test further iterations of your product to get it right.

Don’t let communication be your Achilles heel in becoming investment ready. In the face of the climate emergency and nature crisis that face us all, put simply, there is too much at stake to fail.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

― George Bernard Shaw

By Stephanie Walker, Leadertree Consulting

Leadertree Consulting offers marketing, fundraising and project management consultancy, paired with deep environmental insight. Founder and Director, Stephanie, has previously project managed the development of a nature-based investment product for one of the UK’s leading conservation charities. If you would like to discuss making your environmental project investment ready, please get in touch .

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