Demystifying biodiversity finance

Author

Harrison Carter | DPhil Student

I am a PhD researcher with the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) and Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science (ICSS) at the University of Oxford. With a background in finance and management consulting in London, my research explores realistic pathways for economic systems to better incentivise coexistence between people and the natural world. I lead the Incentivising Conservation research group within WildCRU and hold ongoing expert advisory roles supporting the design and scaling of nature finance interventions. I lecture on Oxford executive education and school access programmes, co-supervise PhD and Masters researchers, and work as a filmmaker and presenter on impact documentaries that aim to engage wider audiences with conservation optimism and local realities of project work.

My applied research focuses on the development and implementation of financial and non-financial incentives for conservation, with particular interest in sustainable conservation finance mechanisms linked to threatened species and wildlife that can be dangerous to live alongside, including venomous reptiles and large carnivores. Alongside my PhD, I am Director of Conservation at the Thousand Year Trust in Cornwall, where I support the restoration of Atlantic temperate rainforest. The Trust’s work has featured in outlets including the BBC, The Guardian, The Spectator, the Woodland Trust, and South West Rainforest Alliance reports. We are the winners of the 2026 Defender Awards, and 2025 winners of the On The Edge conservation fund to grow rainforest on ropes. A central ambition of my work is to create opportunities for exchange between UK restoration projects and global field sites, strengthening collaboration, innovation, and public curiosity about the natural world.

I am also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a member of The Explorers Club, and an Associate at the University of Exeter’s Centre for Ecology and Conservation (CEC).

Author

Sophus zu Ermgassen | Nature finance lead, Nature-positive Hub

I am an ecological economist specialising in biodiversity finance, nature-positive organisations, infrastructure sustainability, sustainable finance, biodiversity offsetting and ecological economics. My academic research features regularly in popular media including the Guardian, BBC Countryfile, the Times, Sky News, the Financial Times and the ENDS report. I currently am currently a Specialist Advisor to Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee and have held 3 expert advisory roles for the UK government: on Natural England’s Biodiversity Net Gain Monitoring and Evaluation expert advisory group; the UK Treasury’s Biodiversity Economics working group; and to the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits. I was an expert contributor to the 2022 UK Environmental Audit Committee report on Biodiversity and Ecosystems, the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology POSTBrief on ‘Biodiversity Net Gain’, and POSTnotes on biodiversity offsetting and just sustainability transitions. I also work as a freelance consultant, including hosting seminars and advising multilateral development institutions and companies on biodiversity net gain, biodiversity offset policy, nature-positive strategy and biodiversity safeguards. I lecture on Masters programmes at the University of Oxford, Surrey, and Imperial as well as Oxford University executive education and school access programmes, and lead a team of nature finance and biodiversity offsetting researchers. I’m co-host of the European Society for Ecological Economics podcast “Economics for Rebels”, and I co-direct the NatureFinance@Oxford seminar series at the University. I was named as one of the 100 most influential environmental professionals in the UK by newspaper the ENDS Report in 2022, won the UKRI Natural Environment Research Council’s early career policy impact award in 2023, led the team that won runner up most impactful research project at Oxford University in 2024 at the Vice-Chancellor’s Awards, and was named as the most impactful early-career researcher in Oxford University’s Medical, Physical and Life Sciences Division in 2024.

My Postdoc is funded by EU Horizon 2020 project “SUPERB”, focusing on understanding and evaluating the mechanisms for financing the restoration of ecosystems across Europe. I also lead an AGILE Sprint on how the UK governments can achieve its finance goals under the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework.

Author

Joe Bull | Associate Professor Tutorial Fellow

My overall research interest lies in exploring, at the landscape scale, which components of biodiversity are the most crucial to protect and restore – given that ecosystems are dynamic, uncertain and subject to change. To do so, I work with simulation models and algorithms, large secondary (and occasionally primary) data sets, and spatial analysis of data including satellite imagery.

I have a particular interest in investigating the impacts of the private sector upon global biodiversity, and investigating mechanisms through which business can manage impacts and fund conservation and restoration activities.