As society becomes more aware of the impacts of our activities opportunities arise for landowners to provide services to developers and other bodies to mitigate the impact of those activities.
Skinner Holden is well-placed to offer advice to both landowners and developers on how natural capital can be used to best effect.
Iain was one of the first Chartered Surveyors to advise on environmental schemes for developers, including the creation of habitat for the translocation of protected species.
More recent advice has been given to charities, local authorities and landowners on nitrate off-setting and bio-diversity net gain opportunities.
Agriculture and Forestry have been using elements of Natural Capital to create their produce.
“Natural capital includes certain stocks of the elements of nature that have value to society, such as forests, fisheries, rivers, biodiversity, land and minerals. Natural capital includes both the living and non-living aspects of ecosystems.”
UK Government definition
Stocks of natural capital provide flows of environmental or ‘ecosystem’ services over time. These services, often in combination with other forms of capital (human, produced and social) produce a wide range of benefits.
These include use values that involve interaction with the resource and which can have a market value (minerals, timber, freshwater) or non-market value (such as outdoor recreation, landscape amenity).
They also include non-use values, such as the value people place on the existence of particular habitats or species.
At its simplest, a natural capital approach is about thinking of nature as an asset, or set of assets, which benefit people. The ability of natural assets to provide goods and services is determined by their quality, quantity and location. These in turn can be affected by background pressures, management practices and drivers of demand.”
I have had the pleasure of working with Iain on a complicated residential planning project in 2017. The way he went about his consultancy services was very professional and on point at all times. I would have no reticence of recomending Iain and look forward to working with him again very soon.