Case study · Nature recovery

Oxfordshire Nature Recovery Fund

A revolving fund that lends to landowners and farmers to restore nature, repaid through the markets that value it. The Impact Factory helped unlock the public funding that started it, structure it to lend lawfully, and bring in private capital to scale it.

Place: Oxfordshire
Theme: Nature recovery
Structure: Revolving loan fund
Partners: Trust for Oxfordshire's Environment (TOE) · Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership (OLNP) · Oxfordshire County Council

The challenge

Nature recovery needs money up front. The income arrives years later. Restoring habitat costs money before it earns any: a landowner planting woodland or creating wetland carries the upfront cost for years before Biodiversity Net Gain units, carbon or other natural capital income starts to flow. Grants are scarce and rarely cover it, and most landowners cannot or will not bridge that gap alone.

Oxfordshire had the ambition, the partners and a pipeline of willing landowners. What was missing was the finance to get projects started, and a vehicle capable of recycling that finance as projects repaid. Public money alone could seed it but never scale it.

What The Impact Factory did

1. Unlocked the public funding

Public bodies rarely release money against ambition alone. We built the case Oxfordshire County Council needed, evidencing the demand, the repayment logic and the public value, which unlocked the commitment to seed the fund.

2. Structured it to lend lawfully

A revolving fund that lends to third parties sits close to regulated territory. We worked alongside the partners and their legal advisers to structure ONReF so it operates within the FCA perimeter and complies with the Subsidy Control regime.

3. Brought in private capital

Public funding gets a fund started; it does not get it to scale. We identified and introduced a private co-investor, then helped facilitate and negotiate the terms, channelling more capital into nature and raising the leverage on every public pound.

How ONReF works

ONReF connects local lenders with local landowners, farmers and enterprises to unlock the potential of nature markets. It offers patient loans that cover the upfront costs of projects delivering measurable environmental benefit, repaid over time as natural capital income comes through: Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) units, voluntary biodiversity credits, Woodland Carbon Code income, and Natural Flood Management payments. It is a partnership between the Trust for Oxfordshire's Environment (TOE) and the Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership (OLNP), supported by Oxfordshire County Council. As projects repay, the capital revolves back into the fund and is lent again.

Expression of Interest

Landowners, farmers, community groups and enterprises in Oxfordshire can tell the ONReF team about a project idea using the Expression of Interest form on this page. It is not an application: it is a short, no-commitment way to describe an idea while the fund is being built. Contact: stuart@theimpactfactory.co.uk.