1 00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:19,560 Hi, I'm Helen Avery with the Green Finance Institute, and 2 00:00:19,560 --> 00:00:21,320 you're listening to Financing Nature. 3 00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:25,440 In this episode, I'm joined by Tim Mayle, founder and Executive 4 00:00:25,440 --> 00:00:28,960 Director of the Environmental Policy Innovation Centre in the 5 00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:33,240 US, to talk about US mitigation, banking and the broader role of 6 00:00:33,240 --> 00:00:38,320 regulatory markets. What we really need is 7 00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:40,680 replication and scale. And so we want people to do 8 00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:43,120 things in very similar ways over and over and over again. 9 00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:45,640 And that's a space that the private sector I think can 10 00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:47,640 really thrive. So that was kind of my 11 00:00:47,680 --> 00:00:50,080 connection to it, was realising that this is just going to be a 12 00:00:50,080 --> 00:00:52,520 faster solution. It's not replacing, right? 13 00:00:52,520 --> 00:00:55,160 It's not replacing government funding or government action or 14 00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:58,120 all the work that Ng OS and scientists, academic scientists 15 00:00:58,120 --> 00:00:59,840 still need to do to figure things out. 16 00:00:59,840 --> 00:01:03,360 But when it comes to something we kind of figured out going 17 00:01:03,360 --> 00:01:07,720 from 1000 hectares to 10,000 hectares to 1,000,000 hectares, 18 00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:11,200 that's to me where private finance and private activity are 19 00:01:11,200 --> 00:01:12,800 really necessary. Many, many Seans. 20 00:01:25,080 --> 00:01:28,160 Hello, hello. So I hope you are very well and 21 00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:29,960 having a good day wherever you are. 22 00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:34,440 Today I am going to be joined by one of my favourite people, Tim 23 00:01:34,440 --> 00:01:37,480 Male, and if you don't know him, you will absolutely want to by 24 00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:39,320 the end of this episode I'm sure. 25 00:01:39,720 --> 00:01:43,600 Tim founded Environmental Policy Innovation Centre, also known as 26 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:47,200 EPIC, and I'll leave it to him to share his incredible 27 00:01:47,200 --> 00:01:50,360 background and what Epic does. But today we are really going to 28 00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:53,360 get into the biggest regulatory market in the world and that is 29 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:56,800 the US, where billions of dollars are being moved into 30 00:01:56,800 --> 00:01:59,320 nature restoration from the private sector. 31 00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:01,840 So it's really exciting and we're going to be talking about 32 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:06,680 why we need these much overlooked models and markets to 33 00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:09,680 get capital flowing. So without any further delay, 34 00:02:09,680 --> 00:02:21,080 let's invite Tim on. Tim, thank you so much for 35 00:02:21,080 --> 00:02:23,160 joining us today. It's such a pleasure to have you 36 00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:25,280 with us. Firstly, just how are you? 37 00:02:25,760 --> 00:02:28,440 I'm a great summertime. Yeah, I know. 38 00:02:28,440 --> 00:02:30,120 It's nice, isn't it? Although it feels, actually 39 00:02:30,120 --> 00:02:32,280 feels a bit like we're heading into fall here. 40 00:02:32,280 --> 00:02:35,800 But I'm not complaining. So I'm excited because we're 41 00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:40,280 going to be talking really about some of the importance of 42 00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:45,120 regulated markets, which I think can get a bit overlooked at the 43 00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:47,480 moment as we're thinking about sort of voluntary markets and 44 00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:49,920 new fancy biodiversity credits and things like that. 45 00:02:49,920 --> 00:02:51,720 And I'm sure we'll go into biodiversity credits as well. 46 00:02:52,120 --> 00:02:55,480 But before we do get going, I think it would be really great 47 00:02:55,480 --> 00:02:58,480 for people to hear more about your own background. 48 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:02,680 And then we'll also talk about Epic and the work you do there. 49 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:05,680 So I'd love to hear a bit of your history, you know, why you 50 00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:08,640 know, how did you get into environmental policy in the 1st 51 00:03:08,640 --> 00:03:10,280 place? And certainly sort of this, this 52 00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:12,600 whole sector of nature finance and markets. 53 00:03:12,600 --> 00:03:14,000 Yeah. Thanks, Helen. 54 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:16,200 Great to be here. You know, honestly, as a as a 55 00:03:16,200 --> 00:03:19,240 kid, I grew up going to this island that used to be a 56 00:03:19,240 --> 00:03:23,600 military base in World War 2, but was now being taken over by 57 00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:25,160 birds. And so I spent my whole 58 00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:28,520 childhood, like basically farming endangered birds, 59 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:33,000 studying them, you know, bringing them, finding their 60 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:37,400 nests and just seeing the population go from 1000 to 2000 61 00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:40,600 to 5000, you know, over the kind of 15 years that I went there 62 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:43,840 and then ended up going to university and focusing on 63 00:03:43,920 --> 00:03:47,400 getting a undergrad degree and then a PhD in in ecology. 64 00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:50,160 But I always wanted to work on environmental policy. 65 00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:52,840 So the goal was to get trained in science, but then bring that 66 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:55,240 perspective to a job in Washington. 67 00:03:55,640 --> 00:03:58,040 And I feel like the thinking that being a scientist brings 68 00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:01,360 for me is that I care less about the the weird exceptions that 69 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:03,880 happen under a law, and I care more about what happens most of 70 00:04:03,880 --> 00:04:05,280 the time. So lawyers are always worried 71 00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:07,960 about like, well, what if someone does ask? 72 00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:12,560 And what I care about is if 80% of people do, why I'm good, if 73 00:04:12,560 --> 00:04:15,880 that's a good policy. So that's that's the way I think 74 00:04:15,880 --> 00:04:18,000 I've been useful sometimes. Yeah. 75 00:04:18,320 --> 00:04:20,839 And so then tell us about Epic and how that came about. 76 00:04:21,240 --> 00:04:23,200 Yeah, I don't know if you've ever done like those personality 77 00:04:23,200 --> 00:04:25,800 tests to figure out what kind of personality where I work. 78 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:29,240 And, and, and, and one of them I did, you know, shut up that I 79 00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:31,680 was deeply impatient. And I was like the only person 80 00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:34,360 in my team at the organisation I worked in who was who was 81 00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:36,600 impatient in that way. And I was like, I want this to 82 00:04:36,600 --> 00:04:40,000 be a strength, not a weakness. So, so I was working at the in 83 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:42,160 the federal government, at the White House, what's called the 84 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:45,840 Council on Environmental Quality till 2017, the beginning of 85 00:04:45,840 --> 00:04:47,880 2017. And I was, you know, leaving and 86 00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:50,920 looking for a new job, had to leave political transition and 87 00:04:50,920 --> 00:04:53,080 all here. And I was like, I want to find 88 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:54,840 some place to work where I could be impatient. 89 00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:59,240 And so I found it epic with a mission of faster progress, 90 00:04:59,240 --> 00:05:01,280 faster environment and public health progress. 91 00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:05,880 So I give an excuse to ask for, you know, skipping steps, taking 92 00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:09,400 risks, just moving faster. And it's funny, you don't often 93 00:05:09,400 --> 00:05:14,640 think of fast-paced taking risks alongside policy making. 94 00:05:14,840 --> 00:05:17,480 So I shall get into that as well. 95 00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:21,760 So I'm really intrigued to hear about how you manage that. 96 00:05:22,120 --> 00:05:24,440 So sort of tell us a bit more about the work of Epic and how 97 00:05:24,440 --> 00:05:28,800 you are sort of working on particularly private sector 98 00:05:28,800 --> 00:05:32,000 investment or private capital when it comes to supporting 99 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:35,040 nature based solutions and sort of high integrity biodiversity 100 00:05:35,040 --> 00:05:37,360 outcomes. Unfortunately, that on trade 101 00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:39,800 point in this was was really incentives. 102 00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:42,360 So how do we create incentives for private land owners and 103 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:45,320 private actors to do more for conservation? 104 00:05:45,920 --> 00:05:49,560 And often the barriers are liabilities, legal liabilities 105 00:05:49,560 --> 00:05:51,240 and things that keep people from doing the right thing. 106 00:05:51,240 --> 00:05:53,320 Like I would I would put endangered species back on my 107 00:05:53,320 --> 00:05:55,040 property. But then, you know, I'm worried 108 00:05:55,040 --> 00:05:58,200 about something happening like somebody's suing me or so it's 109 00:05:58,200 --> 00:05:59,920 often about taking away, you know, risks. 110 00:05:59,920 --> 00:06:02,640 But then it became clear that there was kind of more and more 111 00:06:02,640 --> 00:06:05,560 opportunity to to find markets that the private sector would 112 00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:08,320 actually invest them. And what I realised through the 113 00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:11,920 kind of jobs I had before coming here was that the chance to 114 00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:16,400 really deliver at scale and with greater and greater speed over 115 00:06:16,400 --> 00:06:19,240 time and there was greater and greater efficiency over time was 116 00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:20,920 really something that private sector was going to be much 117 00:06:20,920 --> 00:06:24,520 better at than government or nonprofits like mine, right? 118 00:06:24,520 --> 00:06:28,160 Like nonprofits, because of the funders were all, you know, net 119 00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:30,680 dependent on they always want something new. 120 00:06:30,680 --> 00:06:33,200 So we always have to do things in different ways to make them 121 00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:35,280 happen. And at the private sector, you 122 00:06:35,280 --> 00:06:38,960 can produce the same, you know, Big Mac a billion times and 123 00:06:38,960 --> 00:06:43,520 that's exactly what people want. So for nature, after we kind of 124 00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:46,160 get out some of the kinks, figure things out from a science 125 00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:49,560 perspective, what we really need is replication and scale. 126 00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:52,080 And so we want people to do things in very similar ways over 127 00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:54,600 and over and over again. And that's a space that the 128 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:56,560 private sector I think can really attract. 129 00:06:56,560 --> 00:06:59,080 So that was kind of my connection to it, was realising 130 00:06:59,080 --> 00:07:01,200 that this is just going to be a faster solution. 131 00:07:01,840 --> 00:07:03,960 It's not replacing, right? It's not replacing government 132 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:07,160 funding or government action or all the work that NGOs and 133 00:07:07,160 --> 00:07:09,680 scientists, academic scientists still need to do to figure 134 00:07:09,680 --> 00:07:11,400 things out. But when it comes to something 135 00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:16,640 we've kind of figured out going from 1000 hectares to 10,000 136 00:07:16,640 --> 00:07:20,200 hectares to 1,000,000 hectares, that's to me where where private 137 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:24,000 finance and private activity can really are really necessary. 138 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:28,480 Many, many shams. And I mean, of all the countries 139 00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:32,600 that have managed to work with this ability to get private 140 00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:36,520 sector investment going for an H restoration, it is the States, 141 00:07:36,520 --> 00:07:38,200 isn't it? I mean, I know you and I have 142 00:07:38,200 --> 00:07:40,480 talked before and it seems ridiculous when I talk about, 143 00:07:40,560 --> 00:07:43,360 oh, and all the things we're doing in here in the UK and 144 00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:45,960 you're like, oh, and there's a billion dollars moving in the 145 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:49,920 USI mean, it just, it's just like apples and oranges, really. 146 00:07:50,320 --> 00:07:52,360 So yeah, tell us, tell us about that work. 147 00:07:52,760 --> 00:07:56,000 Yeah, it's more like 4 to 5 billion a year just in, just in 148 00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:58,800 our what are called mitigation banking markets. 149 00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:02,200 So, so like their Habitat banking in England, there's 150 00:08:02,200 --> 00:08:05,240 about four to $5 billion of of transactions per year. 151 00:08:06,120 --> 00:08:09,840 The programmes have been going on mostly under a law called the 152 00:08:09,840 --> 00:08:13,600 Clean Water Acts which regulates impacts to just a few types of 153 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:17,720 wetlands and streams and then the Endangered Species Act which 154 00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:21,080 is our law that protects imperilled biodiversity much 155 00:08:21,080 --> 00:08:25,480 more limited kind of market. There kind of 20 to one scale 156 00:08:25,480 --> 00:08:27,000 difference between those those two. 157 00:08:27,520 --> 00:08:31,000 But those laws led to the creation of these markets and at 158 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:32,120 least for us in the United States. 159 00:08:32,120 --> 00:08:34,240 And there's we all talk about how small our markets are and 160 00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:38,679 how many have never taken off, but it but we did put 20 year 161 00:08:38,679 --> 00:08:41,159 head start on you and most parts of the world. 162 00:08:41,159 --> 00:08:44,560 So those we've taken advantage of those 20 years really and 163 00:08:44,560 --> 00:08:46,600 really gotten, you know, significant scale. 164 00:08:46,600 --> 00:08:50,160 So there's there's something like 24125 hundred banks, 165 00:08:50,160 --> 00:08:52,800 mitigation banks for wetlands and streams across the United 166 00:08:52,800 --> 00:08:56,720 States. There's about a hundred, 150 new 167 00:08:56,720 --> 00:08:58,360 banks approved every single year. 168 00:08:59,640 --> 00:09:01,640 So it's there's a pretty big scale. 169 00:09:01,640 --> 00:09:03,080 It's pretty hard to keep track of. 170 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:06,200 There's, you know, there's data, data national databases show 171 00:09:06,200 --> 00:09:10,040 activity, show, you know, draft new projects out for public 172 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:13,080 comments. But it's it's really kind of a 173 00:09:13,080 --> 00:09:15,200 national successful scale programme. 174 00:09:15,440 --> 00:09:18,680 And I'm happy to talk about the ways it's working and the ways 175 00:09:18,680 --> 00:09:20,600 it's not, but that's that's the kind of scale of it. 176 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:22,000 Yeah. No, I'd love that. 177 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:24,920 And you know, Adam's going to come on in a couple of weeks and 178 00:09:24,920 --> 00:09:27,800 sort of get into sort of how they are an investor. 179 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:30,680 So I'm sure we'll do a bit more of a deeper dive on that that 180 00:09:30,680 --> 00:09:32,120 side. But it'd be really great from 181 00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:35,320 the policy side to understand like how did they manage to get 182 00:09:35,320 --> 00:09:37,640 set up? You know, we often hear with 183 00:09:37,640 --> 00:09:40,880 these regulated markets that there's a reluctance by 184 00:09:40,880 --> 00:09:43,440 governments because they think it's going to cause challenges 185 00:09:43,440 --> 00:09:45,920 with the private sector. So, you know, this isn't this 186 00:09:45,920 --> 00:09:48,280 isn't the states. You know, if the private sector 187 00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:50,000 is going to kick up a fuss, you think it's going to be there. 188 00:09:50,320 --> 00:09:53,960 So, so tell us how it actually worked, sort of how it all came 189 00:09:53,960 --> 00:09:54,480 to be. I. 190 00:09:55,240 --> 00:09:57,720 Mean they connected to politics. You know, Jimmy Carter was kind 191 00:09:57,720 --> 00:10:00,720 of the 1st president that talked about environmental markets and 192 00:10:01,160 --> 00:10:04,400 private activity. Ronald Reagan kept it going and 193 00:10:04,400 --> 00:10:06,800 it was really the first George Bush's president during the 194 00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:09,200 campaign. He went to Canada, which is 195 00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:12,200 weird in the 1st place. He went to a conservation 196 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:16,280 meeting about ducks and he announced his national goal for 197 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:19,960 no net loss of wetlands, which I think is certainly one of the 198 00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:23,920 first major national goals to not have a net, right? 199 00:10:23,920 --> 00:10:26,360 The net being really important, the net loss of some sort of 200 00:10:26,360 --> 00:10:29,120 ecosystem in the future. And then followed it up as 201 00:10:29,120 --> 00:10:31,680 president with a set of actions, developing markets, developing 202 00:10:31,680 --> 00:10:34,200 policies under the Clean Water Act. 203 00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:37,080 Again, our national kind of wetlands law previously 204 00:10:37,400 --> 00:10:41,400 requirements to, you know, avoid and minimise losses, but you 205 00:10:41,400 --> 00:10:44,360 just avoided and minimised on your way to still destroying 206 00:10:44,360 --> 00:10:46,320 quite a bit of wetlands. And there were, you know, 10's 207 00:10:46,320 --> 00:10:49,280 and 10s of thousands of hectares of wetlands losses happening 208 00:10:49,280 --> 00:10:51,080 every year. And of course lots of impacts to 209 00:10:51,080 --> 00:10:53,400 other type of aquatic ecosystems as well. 210 00:10:53,920 --> 00:10:56,920 So the the Bush administration started this process, say, you 211 00:10:56,920 --> 00:11:01,200 know, we can actually do restoration of wetlands and use 212 00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:03,920 those to compensate for losses we simply can't avoid. 213 00:11:03,920 --> 00:11:07,480 Like there's places where businesses or people need to 214 00:11:07,480 --> 00:11:10,400 live or, you know, build something, a road, a railroad. 215 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:13,320 And so they're going to be losses, but let's net them out. 216 00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:16,800 And so there were, you know, many kind of false starts, but 217 00:11:16,800 --> 00:11:19,840 that was really the beginning back in the kind of early 1990s 218 00:11:19,840 --> 00:11:23,640 of this private sector LED restoration of wetlands and 219 00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:26,440 other ecosystems and transactional structure created 220 00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:30,400 by a pretty strict regulation. And I mean, 1 of it, to me, the 221 00:11:30,400 --> 00:11:32,400 most interesting thing, something I would have never 222 00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:35,960 learned in school or didn't ever learn in school, is that, I 223 00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:39,640 mean, just banning something doesn't work much of the time if 224 00:11:39,640 --> 00:11:42,720 there's no alternative. And so the reality was that our, 225 00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:45,680 our laws are being violated, you know, thousands and thousands of 226 00:11:45,680 --> 00:11:49,360 times a year, because if there's no alternative under the law 227 00:11:49,360 --> 00:11:51,680 that allows you to actually, you know, destroy a wetland, the 228 00:11:51,680 --> 00:11:54,880 wetland still gets destroyed. It just doesn't get replaced. 229 00:11:55,640 --> 00:11:58,200 So what they were doing was adding an outlook that says, 230 00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:00,280 well, if you're going to get permission, we're going to, you 231 00:12:00,280 --> 00:12:03,600 know, try our hardest not to give permission, but if we're 232 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:06,200 going to give it, you're also going to have to compensate for 233 00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:08,600 the loss. At the end of the day, that 234 00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:11,920 makes the law far more enforceable by the agency 235 00:12:12,160 --> 00:12:14,320 because they have some answer, right, For those, for the 236 00:12:14,320 --> 00:12:16,600 hospital, the Children's Hospital that needs to be built, 237 00:12:17,120 --> 00:12:18,800 right? Like they have an answer. 238 00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:20,440 They could say we can give you a permit. 239 00:12:20,520 --> 00:12:22,640 I mean, it's, it's we would rather have you do it somewhere 240 00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:24,480 else, but we can give you a permit, but you have to do this 241 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:26,800 thing over there that's good for the habitat. 242 00:12:26,880 --> 00:12:29,080 And that meant that they can start enforcing the law more and 243 00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:31,240 more strictly. So just to give an example, 244 00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:34,360 originally it was just wetlands. The law also protected streams 245 00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:36,400 at which we have millions of miles. 246 00:12:37,080 --> 00:12:39,880 But protection of streams had never ever, ever been enforced 247 00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:41,480 under the law. It's just too hard. 248 00:12:41,640 --> 00:12:44,760 Like every time somebody builds something over a a road over a 249 00:12:44,760 --> 00:12:46,640 stream, right? Thousands of times a year, that 250 00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:49,680 would new bridges or expanded bridges would be happening. 251 00:12:50,360 --> 00:12:52,680 So that was simply ignored, still is ignored in some parts 252 00:12:52,680 --> 00:12:55,440 of the US, but because there's an, there's an outlet, there's 253 00:12:55,440 --> 00:12:59,160 an alternative, it became easier and easier to enforce, you know, 254 00:12:59,160 --> 00:13:01,040 those laws and those, those protections. 255 00:13:01,760 --> 00:13:05,160 And we've, we've probably got a 1,000,000 acres, half, you know, 256 00:13:05,160 --> 00:13:08,240 half a million hectares of, of fully protected land. 257 00:13:08,240 --> 00:13:11,960 That is, you know, as a result of that, including things like 258 00:13:11,960 --> 00:13:15,480 there's like 100,000 or 50,000 hectares of everybody's National 259 00:13:15,480 --> 00:13:19,120 Park that was protected and restored through mitigation 260 00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:21,880 banking. And then absorbed international 261 00:13:21,880 --> 00:13:23,680 park and that's common across the country. 262 00:13:23,760 --> 00:13:26,480 Like we count, I don't know if you have like the the now like 263 00:13:26,480 --> 00:13:30,280 we have a 30 had a 30 by 30 goal to protect 30% of natural 264 00:13:30,320 --> 00:13:32,800 ecosystems. So similar goal in the United 265 00:13:32,800 --> 00:13:37,800 States 100,200 three, 100,000 hectares of the lands that are 266 00:13:37,800 --> 00:13:41,200 counted toward that goal are all things that came about through 267 00:13:41,680 --> 00:13:43,920 through our our mitigation banking programmes. 268 00:13:44,800 --> 00:13:47,240 Wow, OK, I've got lots of questions here and the first 269 00:13:47,240 --> 00:13:50,440 seems maybe the least relevant maybe to this conversation is 270 00:13:50,560 --> 00:13:54,800 how do you compensate for a stream like a wetland? 271 00:13:55,080 --> 00:13:57,520 OK, you can recreate A wetland, but how do you recreate a 272 00:13:57,520 --> 00:13:59,200 stream? Yeah. 273 00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:01,280 I don't, I don't know what it's like in the English countryside, 274 00:14:01,280 --> 00:14:03,280 but if you, you know, if you walk around much of the American 275 00:14:03,280 --> 00:14:06,760 landscape, you find these deeply eroded streams. 276 00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:09,040 Sometimes they've been channelized in the past for 277 00:14:09,440 --> 00:14:11,360 mining or agriculture. So they're just like a, you 278 00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:13,480 know, a gully that runs straight through. 279 00:14:14,360 --> 00:14:19,000 So the restoration often is adding rocks, boulders, fallen 280 00:14:19,000 --> 00:14:22,040 trees, woody material, adding neanders to the streams. 281 00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:24,880 I see. So so you, you you might damage 282 00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:28,520 one stream, but you repair another stream. 283 00:14:28,520 --> 00:14:31,160 OK, create a new stream, right? Exactly. 284 00:14:31,160 --> 00:14:33,920 Yes, more of a physical right. It's a physical reconfiguration 285 00:14:33,920 --> 00:14:35,920 of someplace that's it's damaged. 286 00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:38,800 Well, that's interesting, yeah, because I know it's a hot topic 287 00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:43,480 just here in the UK around river re wiggling, which is not easy 288 00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:48,680 to say 10 times fast. The the so the other question I 289 00:14:48,680 --> 00:14:52,760 had was, and do you remember like what the response was from 290 00:14:52,760 --> 00:14:55,280 the private sector as this was all going through? 291 00:14:55,280 --> 00:14:58,480 Was it, were they on board? Because you, you know, obviously 292 00:14:58,480 --> 00:15:00,840 it cost them money. I mean, it really varies, right? 293 00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:04,760 And that's business is often caricatured as a as a monolith, 294 00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:08,080 but the social licence to operate, to not have locals pick 295 00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:12,600 up with us when you do something has been important for as long 296 00:15:12,600 --> 00:15:15,240 as, you know, humans have societies and cared about their 297 00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:17,960 backyards, right? And it's gotten more and more 298 00:15:17,960 --> 00:15:19,560 pressing as there's more and more people everywhere in 299 00:15:19,560 --> 00:15:21,320 activity, everyone that's doing things. 300 00:15:21,640 --> 00:15:24,600 So I think that there have been many companies for a long time 301 00:15:24,800 --> 00:15:26,520 that have said we can make this work. 302 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:30,320 We can live with this. Please set and put in place 303 00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:32,800 consistent rules and enforce them consistently. 304 00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:35,200 If I'm thinking about another one of those kind of lessons 305 00:15:35,200 --> 00:15:40,080 that's emerged for me that nobody ever taught me and people 306 00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:43,040 rarely talk about, it's that people in government think that 307 00:15:43,040 --> 00:15:46,840 the most important issue that businesses care about is money 308 00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:48,880 is the cost of what they're going to ask them to do. 309 00:15:49,880 --> 00:15:52,560 But actually, it's time, right? Because you've, you've, you've 310 00:15:52,560 --> 00:15:55,120 gone out to the banks, you or the equity market, you raised, 311 00:15:55,160 --> 00:15:58,680 you know, $300 million to do some massive projects. 312 00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:01,320 It starts costing you money the day you borrow it. 313 00:16:02,040 --> 00:16:05,680 And the longer it takes for regulatory decision, the more 314 00:16:05,680 --> 00:16:08,880 you have to pay back on what you've borrowed and the longer 315 00:16:08,880 --> 00:16:11,600 it takes before you actually have revenue from the project 316 00:16:11,600 --> 00:16:14,360 you're building. And government consistently 317 00:16:14,480 --> 00:16:16,480 underestimates that. And they think the negotiation 318 00:16:16,480 --> 00:16:20,760 is all about price as opposed to, but just give us an answer. 319 00:16:20,760 --> 00:16:23,000 Just give us an answer to this question so we can give us a 320 00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:26,080 permit, we'll move forward. And then people would absolutely 321 00:16:26,080 --> 00:16:30,360 pay more faster as opposed to cheaper, you know, regulatory 322 00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:32,120 obligations. That's the, that's the number 323 00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:33,600 one lesson. If you could guarantee someone, 324 00:16:34,280 --> 00:16:38,280 you know, 100% increase in the time it the time that they lose 325 00:16:38,280 --> 00:16:40,440 right in the process, they would pay for that. 326 00:16:40,440 --> 00:16:44,040 That's that's I think the the way to get more buy in for for 327 00:16:44,040 --> 00:16:46,400 policies like these. That's really interesting and 328 00:16:46,400 --> 00:16:48,280 what I mean. And has that come down over 329 00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:51,640 time, the length of that process or is it, you know, still quite 330 00:16:51,640 --> 00:16:53,760 lengthy? I mean, the old approach in the 331 00:16:53,800 --> 00:16:55,960 US was you fix it yourself, right? 332 00:16:55,960 --> 00:16:58,800 So thinking of nature restoration as not a specialist 333 00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:00,920 thing at all. A house builder should be just 334 00:17:00,920 --> 00:17:02,560 as able to go and build a stream or wetland. 335 00:17:03,160 --> 00:17:05,720 So you know, that's that's permitted responsible is what we 336 00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:07,720 call it. And that's the old way of doing 337 00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:09,240 it. And it turns out that's a very 338 00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:11,200 bad way of doing it. It ends up putting the nature 339 00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:13,599 right next to the building, which is usually not very good 340 00:17:13,599 --> 00:17:15,720 for nature. The company involved is usually 341 00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:17,920 doesn't know how to do the thing you're asking them to do. 342 00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:20,000 So we have permittee responsible. 343 00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:22,760 We have separate kind of government or NGO administered 344 00:17:22,760 --> 00:17:26,119 programmes that collect a bunch of money and promise to spend it 345 00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:28,720 for good things in the future. And then we have these banks and 346 00:17:28,720 --> 00:17:31,320 the banks are required to document that they have fixed 347 00:17:31,320 --> 00:17:35,400 something first before they they can sell any of their credits of 348 00:17:35,400 --> 00:17:37,600 their environmental credits. Again, this is different than 349 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:41,320 the way the Ng is, is yet evolved in in England. 350 00:17:42,160 --> 00:17:44,880 And then that whole ecosystem of all those competing models, it's 351 00:17:44,880 --> 00:17:47,560 taken a long time to play out and it's still basically a 352 00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:50,560 third, a third, a third. So there still is permitted 353 00:17:50,560 --> 00:17:53,480 responsible mitigation where the company does it themselves. 354 00:17:53,480 --> 00:17:56,400 There's still these programmes that kind of collect the money 355 00:17:56,400 --> 00:17:58,600 and spend it. And then there's the banks, the 356 00:17:58,600 --> 00:18:00,520 private entrepreneurial banks that operate. 357 00:18:00,720 --> 00:18:04,720 So the US market is is kind of offering all those solutions and 358 00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:08,640 some of them are more important sometimes than others. 359 00:18:10,280 --> 00:18:13,160 And then and the sort of the 45 billion a year that you 360 00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:16,960 mentioned earlier, is that money that's coming from sort of 361 00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:22,120 investment by offsetters themselves or is that actual 362 00:18:22,120 --> 00:18:24,400 financing that's coming? Because I know that there's also 363 00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:27,040 this whole investment market that's developed from pension 364 00:18:27,040 --> 00:18:29,440 funds, for example, around mitigation banks. 365 00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:33,120 Yeah, I mean the the supply exceeds demand. 366 00:18:33,120 --> 00:18:37,120 So investment level is greater than that 4 billion, that's 4 367 00:18:37,120 --> 00:18:40,400 billion is an estimate of the, the credit, the the sales, the 368 00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:42,000 sales of credits. So those are regulatory 369 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:44,680 purchases. The investment level is, is, you 370 00:18:44,680 --> 00:18:47,360 know, significantly higher than. That in terms of the amount 371 00:18:47,360 --> 00:18:50,720 being invested either as you mentioned those three options 372 00:18:51,600 --> 00:18:55,120 into, oh, wow, OK, right. And we also have in addition to 373 00:18:55,120 --> 00:18:57,760 those markets, there are also like you have a nutrient 374 00:18:57,760 --> 00:19:00,640 neutrality policy under the same law, the Clean Water Act, 375 00:19:00,640 --> 00:19:03,840 there's a whole different section that triggers regional 376 00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:07,080 plans around improving water quality, reducing nitrogen, 377 00:19:07,080 --> 00:19:10,560 phosphorus and sediment run off into important estuaries. 378 00:19:10,560 --> 00:19:12,280 Like I live in the Chesaire Bay near Washington. 379 00:19:12,280 --> 00:19:15,840 And so that's a massive estuary. There's pollution limits 380 00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:19,160 essentially like a diet that was supposed to apply to the entire 381 00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:22,760 area, the entire watershed. And everybody's responsible for 382 00:19:22,760 --> 00:19:25,440 reducing the all the states, all the local governments are 383 00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:26,800 responsible for reducing that load. 384 00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:30,480 So there's also investment backed projects that fulfil 385 00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:34,840 needs for that market as well. And then you have and the 386 00:19:34,840 --> 00:19:37,440 endangered species side, you have these very significant 387 00:19:37,440 --> 00:19:40,000 again, economic projects in places like California, Texas 388 00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:43,240 and Florida where there's lots of endangered species that need 389 00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:46,160 to do big offsets as well. And so they'll negotiate 390 00:19:46,760 --> 00:19:51,040 sometimes $100 million deal with government to provide thousands 391 00:19:51,040 --> 00:19:55,280 of acres of habitat enhancement or complete restoration and 392 00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:59,800 creation or just preservation in order for some big government 393 00:19:59,920 --> 00:20:01,760 backed project to be able to go forward. 394 00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:05,200 It's, it's amazing, isn't it? As you say, it's been happening 395 00:20:05,200 --> 00:20:08,520 for a couple of decades, private sector investment into nature 396 00:20:08,520 --> 00:20:13,120 restoration. And yet this message I suppose 397 00:20:13,280 --> 00:20:16,680 isn't translating so much outside of the States. 398 00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:19,400 Why do you think that is? Yeah, I think it's got a, 399 00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:25,520 there's a kind of A2 sided problem, one in the US well, not 400 00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:28,000 yet regulated industries aren't particularly keen to be 401 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:30,880 regulated, right. So they don't typically want to 402 00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:33,600 talk about it. And then the conservation 403 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:37,200 environmental community tends to think this work is all dirty, 404 00:20:37,680 --> 00:20:39,960 right? That somehow government is. 405 00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:43,520 If you give them an outlet like this, you let them, you know, 406 00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:45,640 fix something in exchange for damaging something. 407 00:20:45,920 --> 00:20:48,400 The government issues more permits, the government says yes 408 00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:50,280 more often. And there's literally no 409 00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:51,720 evidence for that anywhere in the world. 410 00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:54,720 Like government says, yes, the destructive things all the time, 411 00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:58,080 everywhere, as far as I know, in every government that's ever 412 00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:00,400 existed in union history, that that's the norm. 413 00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:03,640 So the idea that suddenly you give them an alternative that 414 00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:07,080 requires something for the environment to happen and they 415 00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:09,920 issue more permits, it's just a myth. 416 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:14,160 But it it feels like a safe myth where conservationists get to be 417 00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:17,240 the good guys and are part of this whole economic system. 418 00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:20,560 That's so, you know, suspect. Yeah. 419 00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:22,560 And I think that's, that's kept it from expanding. 420 00:21:22,560 --> 00:21:25,800 And that's, that's really, I mean, this the solution is and 421 00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:27,760 you and you have many environmental regulations where 422 00:21:27,760 --> 00:21:31,120 the outcome is a big fee. Like we have an oil pollution 423 00:21:31,120 --> 00:21:35,280 act, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, you know, a decade ago 424 00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:38,960 now as an example of an outcome that was regulated that, that 425 00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:43,120 law, you know, massive court actions, massive payment into a 426 00:21:43,120 --> 00:21:46,160 government fund for billions to fix the damage afterwards. 427 00:21:46,160 --> 00:21:49,720 But government, you know, a socialised system is effectively 428 00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:52,680 used to collect all the money to fix all the damage caused by the 429 00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:55,320 private sector. Many people are happier with a 430 00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:57,480 system like that where the government controls all the 431 00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:00,920 assets, but like, we're happy to talk about how those systems 432 00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:04,040 don't work out very well. Well, I'd, yeah, I, I think that 433 00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:07,520 would be helpful to hear that why, but it's sort of slightly 434 00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:10,800 sort of lead in a type of market that it moves far faster. 435 00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:12,720 I'm going to guess is one of the one of the things. 436 00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:15,080 But yeah, sort of tell us the difference between those two. 437 00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:16,880 Yeah, that's right. So you asked me about the, the 438 00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:20,560 speed thing and, and the, the private banks that we use in the 439 00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:24,240 United States effectively result in permits being issued 50% 440 00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:27,360 faster. So the government regulator is 441 00:22:27,360 --> 00:22:30,240 able to say, Yep, that's a wetland of that type or that's 442 00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:32,720 endangered species habitat of the appropriate type. 443 00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:36,120 You've already, you know, protected it, restored it. 444 00:22:36,120 --> 00:22:38,520 I can see the outcomes that we agreed to that you're supposed 445 00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:42,600 to produce good to go that that is equivalent to or you know, 446 00:22:42,600 --> 00:22:46,560 2X10X greater than the damage being caused over here. 447 00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:51,680 You get your permit 50% faster. So it obviously definitely has a 448 00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:55,440 time benefit. On the issue of to me why those 449 00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:59,720 large number of those government run programmes don't work is 450 00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:03,920 that I suspect this is true in England nearly everywhere, is 451 00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:06,960 that people in government agencies are underfunded and 452 00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:10,360 there aren't enough of them to do any job that they've ever 453 00:23:10,360 --> 00:23:12,360 been given. I mean, I how many pieces of 454 00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:15,880 testimony to Parliament or legislature are basically the 455 00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,720 person starting off saying that we are, you know, struggling to 456 00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:21,440 keep up, right. So you've got these people who 457 00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:24,400 have already have 10 jobs that we, the public have given them. 458 00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:28,400 And now you come along and say, so here's this external actor 459 00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:29,720 who's building this thing over here. 460 00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:32,360 We're going to have them give you some money. 461 00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,040 And by the way, now you're responsible for fix, for 462 00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:36,880 replacing something that they damaged. 463 00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:42,400 This is your new 11th mission. And So what mostly happens with 464 00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:45,760 that money is it sits on spent. It literally sits in an account 465 00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:50,200 waiting for someone to spend it. The second part is that people 466 00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:52,040 in government often spend a lot of time because they're 467 00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:54,640 particularly risk averse trying to find the perfect project. 468 00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,200 Oh my goodness, we have, you know, $50,000,000 to spend. 469 00:23:57,200 --> 00:23:58,880 Like, let's make sure we spend it really well. 470 00:23:59,360 --> 00:24:01,520 So we spend a long time designing things, like over 471 00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:05,120 designing things. That's the other, other big part 472 00:24:05,120 --> 00:24:06,920 of the massive time, the way that happens. 473 00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:09,960 Yeah, I can see that because it can politically be used against 474 00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:12,800 you in, you know, the next political cycle if you've, yeah, 475 00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:15,320 put 50 million into a project that didn't quite work. 476 00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:17,560 Yeah. Yeah, it's a really bad project 477 00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:19,920 that people don't people don't like or it's easy to character 478 00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,000 caricature is, you know, incredibly expensive. 479 00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:24,840 So it's much better to have somebody else be responsible for 480 00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:26,400 that. The third part is liability 481 00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:28,920 transfer, right? So we're all very good at 482 00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:31,880 understanding liability transfer for, you know, faulty seat belt 483 00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:33,800 or something. You can sue someone and they 484 00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:35,480 were responsible in this portly design. 485 00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:38,440 Government's not very good at taking liability. 486 00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:42,360 And so when you transfer money, when a private banker accepts 487 00:24:42,360 --> 00:24:45,800 $1,000,000 to produce a wetland in the United States and they 488 00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:49,880 fail, they have a bond that they sacrifice, In other words, 489 00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:52,560 insurance that they pay into a government fund, they're 490 00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:55,640 financially penalised. They can be held liable to fix 491 00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:57,160 it. So they can have to go out and 492 00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:00,160 under like an enforced settlement with observers, you 493 00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:02,280 know, go and fix the thing that they were supposed to do. 494 00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:06,360 So there's a lot of liability, typically when government pays 495 00:25:06,360 --> 00:25:08,400 for a project and it doesn't work out. 496 00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:11,280 So Oh well, give us more money and we'll fix it. 497 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:13,840 Well, we'll just wait till you give us more money. 498 00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:15,600 I mean, that's the standard we expect. 499 00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,200 We have things that don't go right, budgets, projects that go 500 00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:20,800 over budget all the time. That's the way it works. 501 00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:22,640 And again, it's not a criticism of the people there. 502 00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:25,640 That's like that's just the way that government operates. 503 00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:28,720 We don't, we don't make them take out liability insurance on 504 00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:31,800 almost anything they do around the environment, at least so. 505 00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:35,400 Yeah. So while we're on, I know we've 506 00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:37,520 got other things we want to talk about, but just sticking with 507 00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:41,440 mitigation banking for a moment. What I'm also keen to understand 508 00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:46,120 is 1, you know, what are some of the things that come up a lot 509 00:25:46,120 --> 00:25:49,080 are sort of permanence issues. So I'm really keen to understand 510 00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,840 what the US model is there. And then also the big question 511 00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,440 people are asking at the moment is about insurance, I mean, and 512 00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,080 who's on the hook for actual delivery if things, you know, if 513 00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:02,440 climate change is or as fire, etcetera, etcetera. 514 00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:06,160 So I'd love if we could touch on those couple of things as well, 515 00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:08,000 what we could learn from the US markets. 516 00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,120 We cannot solve that. A long time ago, like 1950s, we 517 00:26:11,120 --> 00:26:15,040 created a conservation easement that is permanent. 518 00:26:15,120 --> 00:26:19,400 It's, you know, it's literally a permanent restriction on land 519 00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:21,720 that says that you cannot develop this land. 520 00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:26,080 Some states have limited it to 100 years, but but generally our 521 00:26:26,080 --> 00:26:27,760 laws all require permanent protection. 522 00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:30,760 So let's let's say it's a I'll use a simple example. 523 00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:32,880 You go out and buy a damaged wetland site. 524 00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:37,080 You separate out the development right from the rest of the 525 00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:39,880 right. So you mitigation banker on the 526 00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:42,760 title to the property, but you take all the development rights 527 00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:44,800 and you hand them over to government and you hand them to 528 00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:47,560 a nonprofit. They own the development rights. 529 00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,800 You own the ability to restore the property and access the 530 00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,720 site. And then that stays. 531 00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:58,320 Those now separated property rights stay on the books forever 532 00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,240 or for 100 years and they're enforceable. 533 00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,080 They they do, you know, like they get every once in a while 534 00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:06,920 they get violated like some other project comes along and 535 00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:10,520 the state, the government can eminent domain lands and rights 536 00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:12,640 like that. So they can void, but it doesn't 537 00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:16,320 happen very often. So that's the permanent answer. 538 00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:18,760 And then insurance is a great idea. 539 00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,640 The place that the US market has evolved that I hope England and 540 00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:28,280 Columbia and Australia and other countries get to is that we 541 00:27:28,360 --> 00:27:32,240 generally require proof that the ecological restoration has 542 00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:36,320 happened before you can sell it. So in that circumstance, 543 00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,200 insurance is of less value because you can literally see 544 00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:43,280 the the evidence of success before you allow them to, to do 545 00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:47,280 anything with the asset. But regardless of that, in the 546 00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:49,480 US, we still have duplicative insurance requirements. 547 00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:52,240 So you have to bond your project, you have to, you know, 548 00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:55,200 set aside money to ensure that all the things you're doing, as 549 00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,160 you're doing them are going to play out. 550 00:27:57,320 --> 00:27:59,840 So the projects are typically insured and bonded, just like 551 00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:02,040 any construction project is insured and bonded. 552 00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:04,800 Then there's a performance, a long term performance bond that 553 00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:09,040 also stays on many mitigation properties that typically drops 554 00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,000 over time. So as you complete activities 555 00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:15,160 and sell credits effectively over time, the money sitting in 556 00:28:15,160 --> 00:28:17,080 a bank account and an escrow account goes down. 557 00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:22,480 There are private insurance providers that specialise in 558 00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:24,360 this market. Literally this is kind of all 559 00:28:24,360 --> 00:28:27,240 they do is is insurer restoration. 560 00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:30,520 A number of the companies use kind of escrow accounts. 561 00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:33,520 They use their own capital to park in a, you know, kind of a 562 00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:36,840 legally guaranteed account that's cheaper way to set aside 563 00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,560 money. We don't have great standards in 564 00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,160 the United States on just how much money should be set aside. 565 00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:45,880 And it's kind of a wasteful thing that sometimes there's a 566 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,560 lot of subjectivity in our across our government agencies, 567 00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:51,960 and sometimes they require far more money for far longer, which 568 00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,680 increases project costs, which increases, you know, credit 569 00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:56,560 costs. The costs all get passed along. 570 00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:58,320 So it'd be nice to have standards there. 571 00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:00,920 But insurance has really been a crucial part of the market. 572 00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,080 And that taking ecological performance risk out of the 573 00:29:04,080 --> 00:29:07,200 whole process and requiring it upfront has been a really big 574 00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:10,520 deal too. I mean, I suppose when I sort of 575 00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:13,320 listen to you speaking, I think, I mean, it's such a different 576 00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:17,080 landscape, isn't it, in England and even thinking across like 577 00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:20,720 Europe compared to like, you know, US, Canada, Australia. 578 00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,080 Well, that I mean, the to me, the best conceivable thing that 579 00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:26,640 could have happened when you had a lady government come in is 580 00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:28,760 that they would have said we're going to do the exact same thing 581 00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:31,720 with DND as opposed to we're going to do the opposite thing 582 00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:34,520 and and confuse everyone. As far as I can tell, that's 583 00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:37,560 where you all are. That's the worst. 584 00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:40,720 Days we might keep with it it. Might it might help? 585 00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:43,200 We do, yeah. But consistency, right? 586 00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:46,480 If the two governments had been consistent, that immediately 587 00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:49,160 creates a signal for investment that we should scale up our 588 00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:51,040 investments. Looks like this thing is a go. 589 00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:55,240 And we could, instead of doing a 500 hectare bank, why don't we 590 00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:59,280 invest in a 2000 hectare bank or 10 banks in, in, you know, local 591 00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:02,960 development authority areas? Because it seems like it's going 592 00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:06,200 to be a consistent policy and the whole supply demand thing 593 00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:08,440 would be partly dissolved by government just saying we're 594 00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,200 going to stay the course on this and we'll help adjust. 595 00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:15,000 But but basically you know your investment is is not at at 596 00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,200 extreme risk just a couple years in. 597 00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:19,600 Yeah. Well, I actually, I think, you 598 00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:23,400 know, to your point on some people being nervous, some 599 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:25,960 groups quite nervous about these kinds of policies. 600 00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,680 I think what happened was there were some very loud voices about 601 00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:34,760 how BNG was not perfect in terms of integrity and habitat at such 602 00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:38,240 an early stage. And I, I would imagine that if 603 00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:40,240 you're a new government that comes in and you're getting a 604 00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:42,200 lot of letter saying it's not high integrity enough and we're, 605 00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:44,040 we're complaining about BNG and it needs to have more 606 00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:46,800 environmental impact as a new government, you might think, 607 00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:48,800 well, screw it, what's my policy? 608 00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,120 And if I'm going to get all this hassle from the environmental 609 00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:53,920 sector, what's the point? And so I think some of that has 610 00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:57,360 been now reframed and the environmental sector has now 611 00:30:57,360 --> 00:31:00,080 come in and said, no, sorry, we actually really do want BNG and 612 00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,360 it can work. So here are some things that 613 00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:05,120 need to happen because otherwise, you know, it's sort 614 00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:06,840 of a juggle. So I do understand why they've 615 00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:09,440 been these consultations, but I am confident that we are going 616 00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:13,320 to stick with what we had and this was more of a blip. 617 00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:16,560 I'm just giving you a brief hard time because of course it's the, 618 00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,280 it's the pot calling the kettle black a little bit because we've 619 00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:20,680 had a few flip flops here as well. 620 00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:23,760 OK. And but it was, it was more of a 621 00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:26,400 point of like so on your landscapes, because they're so 622 00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:29,960 big, you can find some landscapes, create an enormous 623 00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:33,320 restoration project. And so that permanence is there. 624 00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:35,480 It's a conservation, as you say, might become part of a National 625 00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,360 Park and in, you know, of England. 626 00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:41,080 And even if it's to be rolled out across the UK and even 627 00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:43,000 Europe, you're relying on farmers. 628 00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,240 And then it's a whole different kettle of fish because you're 629 00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:49,160 thinking about their own sort of family plans on the line. 630 00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:51,800 So does that work? Is it our farmer? 631 00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:55,040 I mean, I'm presuming it's just a straight ownership of land and 632 00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,040 it gets restored or? It's a, it's a mix. 633 00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:02,120 I mean the, the, the underlying legal options with land are a 634 00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:04,520 little different for you and in Europe than here. 635 00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:07,600 So it is a bit different. But many of these properties are 636 00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:11,320 farms before they're banks. So it's actually no different. 637 00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:15,080 And there are in fact farmers who own litigation banks and 638 00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:18,320 they'll hire a company to come in and build it for them and 639 00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:21,440 they share profit on it. But effectively they remain, you 640 00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:24,000 know, an owner of the bank. So that's that's been 641 00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:25,720 consistent. And one of the early problems we 642 00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:29,240 had, we call them service areas. So basically, how big of an area 643 00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,440 can you buy credits in? And originally our regulators 644 00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:35,720 wanted them to be extremely small, which made it extremely 645 00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:39,600 hard to have relevant supply like match up the investment in 646 00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:41,840 nature with the need for permits. 647 00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:44,440 So that was a problem. And the industry was always like 648 00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:46,280 bigger, bigger, bigger. And the government was always 649 00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:48,400 like smaller, smaller, smaller, and eventually settled on 650 00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:51,520 something that generally works. It's big enough that you can 651 00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:54,680 find larger parcels that are really good for nature that are 652 00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:57,840 next to other natural areas where the land is a little bit 653 00:32:57,840 --> 00:32:59,480 cheaper. You know, it's lower, lower cost 654 00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:02,040 because there's less value for humans. 655 00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:04,640 So it's generally worked out that way, but that that issue 656 00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:08,880 still comes up some of the time. But so you've got in England all 657 00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:12,720 this, this wide variation in the size of your, your units, which 658 00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:14,920 I would think is something you have to figure out how to deal 659 00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:17,040 with, how to create some sort of relief for, because you are 660 00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:19,880 going to have ups and downs, right, in development permits. 661 00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:22,360 And so you're going to have times when there's just not a 662 00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:25,760 supply in that small of an area. Yeah, totally. 663 00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:28,480 Yeah, Yeah. We've got a got a lot of houses 664 00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:29,960 to build and how much room to build them on. 665 00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:32,600 I'm really conscious of time. My God, we could talk about 666 00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,320 everything, but I really wanted us to sort of talk about this. 667 00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:39,200 This importance of, you know, impact is only going to 668 00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:41,280 increase. This is why regulated markets 669 00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:47,840 are so important and your views on what we might do in order to 670 00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,400 move forward more regulated markets globally. 671 00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:57,240 And then, you know, we had TNC on with wending back last week 672 00:33:57,240 --> 00:33:59,720 to sort of just touch on the EU road map. 673 00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:02,400 But if you've got other views, you know, more views on EU, we'd 674 00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,480 love to hear them too. So, yeah, just sort of moving 675 00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:08,719 into this sort of final 10 minutes or so, like what's your, 676 00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,360 yeah, what's your view and how we can move these forward 677 00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:13,880 quicker in other countries and why they're so important, like 678 00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:15,080 really getting that message home. 679 00:34:16,199 --> 00:34:18,280 Yeah. I mean, I think especially when 680 00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:21,159 I think about, you know, population growth and economic 681 00:34:21,159 --> 00:34:24,960 transformation and all of Africa, big parts of Asia, 682 00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:27,440 impacts on nature just aren't going away. 683 00:34:27,679 --> 00:34:30,600 You know, we're eating more food and using more land than ever 684 00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:32,320 before almost everywhere in the world. 685 00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,719 And there's no way to do that without harm to biodiversity. 686 00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:39,920 And the agricultural system is just kind of the biggest land 687 00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:41,800 user, right? And it's just gifted getting 688 00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:46,560 bigger and more intensive. So we really need outlets for 689 00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:49,880 impacts that are occurring. There is no nature positive 690 00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:51,880 future that doesn't involve the word net. 691 00:34:52,199 --> 00:34:55,400 You know, just isn't. You're going to have lots of 692 00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:58,680 negative and we have to figure out a way to create more than 693 00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:02,080 balancing positive to it. There's no alternative for all. 694 00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:04,040 There just isn't. Anyone who thinks otherwise is 695 00:35:04,240 --> 00:35:07,000 living in a fantasy world or maybe a very small box with 696 00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:10,200 people leaving it instead of showing up and asking for more 697 00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:12,080 stuff. I don't know where that is. 698 00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:15,200 I know, right? I don't know where that is at 699 00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,520 all. But so we really need these 700 00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:19,240 markets to work out. There's a lot of things that 701 00:35:19,240 --> 00:35:22,160 government can do that are short of regulation. 702 00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:24,160 And in fact, I think the regulatory broach is often 703 00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:28,120 backwards, right, which is create a restriction in law and 704 00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:30,360 then figure out how to help people get there. 705 00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:34,680 And so, you know, for example, I think one of the most important 706 00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,800 things that governments could and should do everywhere is, 707 00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:42,200 say, anyone who has a natural asset, you know, a piece of land 708 00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:46,680 with some nature in it today or water, if you make it better at 709 00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:49,400 some, we guarantee that at some point in the future, as long as 710 00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:52,880 you can document that it was once worse, you know, after 2025 711 00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:55,840 and now better, we will let you sell that. 712 00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:58,960 We'll value it, we'll buy it, we'll pay you for it in the 713 00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:00,360 future. Like get started now. 714 00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:03,080 Get started defining your assets, expanding your assets. 715 00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:04,440 Now. We're not going to deal the 716 00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:05,440 deal. We're not going to change our 717 00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:07,880 minds. This is really helpful for our 718 00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:09,640 broader goals. We want everyone to start 719 00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:12,840 working. It's very hard to do, but it's 720 00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:15,800 the most important signal to get all of the early adopters out 721 00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:18,040 there, all the great, you know, people who are constantly trying 722 00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:21,680 to figure out how to improve the, the thing that they own at 723 00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:24,720 the moment. And it's the clearest driver for 724 00:36:24,720 --> 00:36:26,320 like, well, how do we measure this stuff too, right? 725 00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:28,960 That's a endless debate, especially if there's more than 726 00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:32,800 one scientist involved of like, is there a standardised way we 727 00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:34,800 can measure this that's cheap and scalable and, you know, and 728 00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:37,360 affordable. And so it helps drive well, this 729 00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:40,360 is this is it helps drive our ability to understand how we do 730 00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:44,080 enhance ecosystems all around the world, dry ones and wet ones 731 00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:47,040 and cold ones and warm ones. How do we just how do we agree 732 00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:49,400 on, you know, measures for that? Satellite data is get making it 733 00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:52,560 easier and easier and drone and other sensor equipment. 734 00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:55,000 So that's the simplest thing that government can do is just, 735 00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,280 you know, provide a guarantee and their willingness to use 736 00:36:57,280 --> 00:36:59,400 public money to back some of that would be crucial. 737 00:36:59,920 --> 00:37:03,120 I also think there's so many ways that governments in the US 738 00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:07,520 is is quite exceptional in this, but create various tax benefits, 739 00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,200 tax credits around investments in certain things that 740 00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:13,920 government wants more of. And so why there are tax credits 741 00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:17,440 and tax benefits for, you know, investments in nature, that 742 00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:22,040 completely eludes me because the alternative is public spending 743 00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:24,880 all the money and direct cash from taxpayers pockets. 744 00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:28,240 And, you know, tax benefit structures are a really 745 00:37:28,240 --> 00:37:30,440 attractive way to increase investment. 746 00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,600 And so that's the secondary where again, it doesn't take a a 747 00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:36,960 regulation first, you can simply say we're going to reward 748 00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:41,760 investment that goes into, you know, with a good plan and clear 749 00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:44,480 evidence that it's something that's consistent with overall 750 00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,440 government objectives around nature or water. 751 00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,360 In the right place, right in the right kind of activity, in the 752 00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:52,640 right place, you can take advantage of the favourable 753 00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:55,880 track tax treatment. Those things are very clear 754 00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:58,280 things that governments can do, you know, anywhere in the world. 755 00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:00,800 And then there's like some simple things. 756 00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,920 So, you know, one of my criticisms of many people from 757 00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:08,320 the carbon market is that they've sold many, many things, 758 00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:10,280 but there's lots of projects that have turned out to not be 759 00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:12,280 very saleable in the carbon market. 760 00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:15,200 And a lot of people are like, well, great, now let's sell them 761 00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:17,600 in the biodiversity market. And I just don't think it's a 762 00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:20,320 good thing to start a new market with the lefters from another 763 00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:23,000 market that they're not just leftovers, right? 764 00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:25,080 Like they're not like the the great food you had in the 765 00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:27,280 restaurant last night. They're like leftovers that 766 00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:30,440 nobody wanted last night. Like that's the that's the place 767 00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:33,520 you were going to leave behind. It's a really bad way to start. 768 00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:35,920 So we should be starting with the easiest to restore, the 769 00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:39,440 easiest to protect properties with the simplest stories behind 770 00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:42,720 them where everyone can agree this is a fantastic place to try 771 00:38:42,720 --> 00:38:44,640 to enhance or protect biodiversity. 772 00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:47,760 New projects there. And I'm sure that in every 773 00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:49,520 country in the world or just about every country in the 774 00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:52,520 world, we can find places that everyone agrees we want more 775 00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:54,880 nature over here. And we generally know what it 776 00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,480 looks like. And let's try to focus our 777 00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:01,080 projects there instead of trying to meet everyone everywhere at 778 00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:04,920 once with a market that springs, you know, like in full form out 779 00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,320 of nothing. And I just think there's much 780 00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:09,960 easier ways to prove to the. And I have to think about, you 781 00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:12,040 know, the media, like the average Guardian, average New 782 00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:15,320 York Times reporter as being the template for who we're trying to 783 00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:16,960 satisfy. Like, give them something that 784 00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:19,920 they can see like, this is demonstrably better than it was 785 00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:21,760 before. There's newts and bats and frogs 786 00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:23,320 now, and they weren't there before. 787 00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:27,080 We can argue about whether the person who's buying it is making 788 00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,960 some claim that you think is is is excessive in some way. 789 00:39:31,720 --> 00:39:34,440 But the nature is better, right? Like we wanted, we should be 790 00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,120 able to prove that, you know? Yeah, yeah. 791 00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,680 And and just it's you speak, you just think, gosh, in this the 792 00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:45,440 era we're in where job markets are getting a fee, we've got AI 793 00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:48,520 reducing the number of jobs. You think of the ecology jobs 794 00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:52,840 that would be, you know, be created through this kind of 795 00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:55,720 work. It'd just be a. 100% estimated 796 00:39:55,720 --> 00:39:58,920 it 50,000 ecology jobs in the United States that are just just 797 00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:02,720 in this one sector and wow. Just in mitigation banking, 798 00:40:02,720 --> 00:40:05,160 yeah, yeah, I. Guess like equivalent to the 799 00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:07,080 number of coal mining jobs we have in the United States right 800 00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:07,680 now. That's. 801 00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:10,120 Wow. Yeah, nature restoration is this 802 00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:13,440 should be, should be a more powerful force than than coal 803 00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:14,120 mining. Yeah. 804 00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:17,600 Yes, yeah. And just touching one of one of 805 00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:19,840 the points I raised earlier was about the EU. 806 00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:22,160 It'd be great to sort of hear your thoughts as well before we 807 00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:26,480 wrap up on that. So the new EU nature credit road 808 00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:30,000 map, it's actually quite a readable and useful document at 809 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:31,920 the end of the day. You know, I was, I was really 810 00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:33,720 pleased when I saw it for the first time. 811 00:40:34,240 --> 00:40:38,640 It's really focused on voluntary and so still perpetuates this 812 00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:42,000 kind of misunderstanding of the necessary role that compensatory 813 00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,360 and offsetting actions are going to have to play. 814 00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:48,480 And even if it's not an acceptance of that market, it's 815 00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:50,880 like learning from how those markets function. 816 00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,360 You know, part of the premise is that somehow the quality of the 817 00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:58,200 credits matters in the certainty and the guarantees and the, you 818 00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:00,640 know, liabilities. And somehow those matter less if 819 00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:02,920 it's voluntary. I don't think that's the case. 820 00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:06,520 Like a buyer who buys nature restoration on a voluntary basis 821 00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:10,080 doesn't want it to burn down any more than somebody who is buying 822 00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:12,880 it because they have to, you know, and so their quality 823 00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:16,040 issues is really important from a long term market side. 824 00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:20,280 The other area that I think that the EU is, is kind of missing. 825 00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:24,720 It's talking about government finance as a necessary addition 826 00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:28,240 to markets early on. But it, it really doesn't say 827 00:41:28,240 --> 00:41:30,840 much at all about how to incentivize private money to 828 00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:34,120 come in, how to, you know, how to guarantee that they'll be a 829 00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:38,200 market for the investment that the pilot projects, the starting 830 00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,320 work. And I think that's where, you 831 00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:44,160 know, government as a kind of a backstop buyer is better than 832 00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:46,040 government as a backstop financier. 833 00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,600 So, so in other words, like one of the things that I've thought 834 00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:53,480 about in the United States a lot is, is a like a guaranteed floor 835 00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,400 price kind of agreements. And then we've only had this in 836 00:41:56,400 --> 00:41:58,680 one place and actually in the city of Washington, DC, very 837 00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:00,640 guaranteed floor price on our nutrient credits. 838 00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:02,800 But effectively government saying, look, if you haven't 839 00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:05,840 sold these credits in 10 years, we'll buy them from you at a 840 00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:08,360 price that we agree on today. Whatever, you know, music 841 00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:11,040 competitive process, here's the price, 10 years. 842 00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:13,680 We don't want to, but we would buy these with, you know, with 843 00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,160 future nature budgets in 10 years. 844 00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:19,840 That's to me one a much better way to bring in money because 845 00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:22,720 then it really forces the private sector to work this all 846 00:42:22,720 --> 00:42:24,400 out. And it gives everybody a target 847 00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:26,720 for the price that we're trying to get the market to hit in 848 00:42:26,720 --> 00:42:29,040 order for people to make more money than they were going to 849 00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:31,040 make from, you know, the government payout, including 850 00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:33,720 because of inflation lowering the future value of that money 851 00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,320 at the end of the day. Like that's those are kind of 852 00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,880 some of the finance solutions that I wish I saw more. 853 00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:41,320 I was in that in that road map. Yeah. 854 00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:43,480 It remains to be seen, doesn't it, whether they're sort of just 855 00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:47,040 setting the tone for this kind of regulated framework for 856 00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:50,760 voluntary and then allowing every country to sort of 857 00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:52,960 determine whether what's right for it. 858 00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,680 I know we're, we're, we're looking at a couple of working 859 00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:58,560 with a couple of EU countries around actually, is it worth 860 00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:02,160 setting up a regulatory market or at least a national standard? 861 00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,120 Yeah, it is. It also is kind of an irony, 862 00:43:05,120 --> 00:43:06,440 right? The whole thing talks about a 863 00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:12,120 deeply regulated supply of credits while missing the whole 864 00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:15,440 regulation of the thing in the 1st place that we're actually 865 00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:16,560 talking about. That's the problem. 866 00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:17,760 That was just the loss of nature. 867 00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:21,840 And we and we know the problem is the demand because the supply 868 00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,240 will step up if there's demand. I mean, it's just, I mean, it's 869 00:43:24,240 --> 00:43:25,280 the demand that needs to move first. 870 00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,760 We know. And then just to when you're 871 00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:31,000 talking about that DC project, is that stormwater retention 872 00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:31,720 credits? Yeah. 873 00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:34,160 Stormwater retention. With that, yeah, I mean, they're 874 00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:35,480 amazing. And I just don't think we're 875 00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:40,080 replicating those in a way that we absolutely could in different 876 00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:44,280 countries and jurisdictions. Actually, maybe we should cover 877 00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:49,160 that on, on, on here. Well, we are, I know we've gone 878 00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:50,520 way over. So I'm sorry, I'm just going to 879 00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:52,640 wrap up really by just sort of giving you a chance to sort of 880 00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:56,200 tell us about what Epic's working on and sort of sort of 881 00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:58,440 next steps for you. And, and even sort of you know 882 00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:00,760 what you're optimistic about in the in the coming months as 883 00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:03,440 we've got, we go into COP 30 at some point. 884 00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:06,160 We've got to find like weird opportunities. 885 00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:09,600 People call U.S. policy ninjas because we find like sneaky 886 00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:12,480 little hidden areas of policy that other people aren't working 887 00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:14,960 on and maybe aren't paying attention to that we can flip in 888 00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:20,840 some way and then have a win. And I, I, I like that analogy. 889 00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:22,640 And so you know we. We continue. 890 00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:25,080 Exactly. We continue to look in the 891 00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,160 United States for effectively what we look for is, is somebody 892 00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:31,200 like a, a leader of a government agency, a political appointee or 893 00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:34,240 just a senior person who knows their way around and they really 894 00:44:34,240 --> 00:44:37,120 want to do something and they need help though to figure out 895 00:44:37,120 --> 00:44:39,000 what to do. And I think of it as a rock on 896 00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:40,800 top of the hill instead of a rock and bottom of the hill. 897 00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:42,640 So we're going to help them roll the rock down. 898 00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:45,560 So I think of some of the most interesting opportunities are 899 00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:49,600 for example, bringing AI and and a lot of other innovative 900 00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:52,840 technologies into environmental permitting to make environmental 901 00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:55,680 permitting dramatically faster. So I just give you know, the US 902 00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:58,680 issues, the federal government issues about 1.5 million permits 903 00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:02,160 every four years presidential under an administration. 904 00:45:02,720 --> 00:45:04,880 The governors of states issue about 100,000. 905 00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:08,080 And so one of the states near us has done this kind of really 906 00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:11,040 radical transformation of the software, uses managed permits 907 00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:14,720 and has delivered a 70% improvement in permit timelines. 908 00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:18,200 Instead of taking 8 to 12 weeks to get, for example, a licence 909 00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:21,280 to open a new business same day, they get the licence in the same 910 00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:24,120 day. And they're using basically 911 00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:27,960 technology to make that possible by just managing decisions and 912 00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:30,000 the people involved in decisions much, much better. 913 00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:32,680 So we're really excited about that as a, as just kind of a 914 00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:35,920 radical accelerator of environmental decision making 915 00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:39,360 and all the things that come, all the benefits that come from 916 00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:43,040 that in terms of reduced friction to environmental rules 917 00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:45,840 in the 1st place, because it no longer hurts so much to go 918 00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:48,240 through the process. So that's where I'm most excited 919 00:45:48,240 --> 00:45:50,920 about the kind of global and national transformations we'll 920 00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:53,280 see in a little bit of time. Yeah, I love it. 921 00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:56,680 And I know that we're hoping that, you know, we'll be able to 922 00:45:56,680 --> 00:46:02,200 work together on maybe taking your policy ninja skills into, 923 00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:05,680 you know, other countries as as well who are trying to work 924 00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:08,520 through the MB, SAP and their own environmental policies. 925 00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:10,840 So well. Thank you so much, Tim. 926 00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:12,600 It's been such a pleasure having you on. 927 00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:15,760 I wish we had could talk for hours because there's just so 928 00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:19,240 much we could cover, including, I just love your views on the US 929 00:46:19,240 --> 00:46:22,400 more broadly, but I want to be respectful of your time. 930 00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:25,880 So thank you again. And yeah, look forward to 931 00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:28,640 hearing more about what Epic's doing over the months ahead. 932 00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:30,400 Yeah, I really appreciate it, Alan. 933 00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:39,400 Cheers. Well, that's it for this week. 934 00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:46,880 You can find out more about Epic at www.policyinnovation.org and 935 00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:49,320 we have the pleasure of working with Tim actually as part of 936 00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:52,320 that Revenues for Nature programme with UNFFI and UNDP 937 00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:54,880 Biofin. And you can find out more about 938 00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:59,560 that by Googling Revenues for Nature and GFI including you'll 939 00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:02,960 find a guide book that was actually written by Epic on US 940 00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:06,560 mitigation banking. So many, many pages on how it 941 00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:10,360 was set up and how it works and sort of lessons learned from 942 00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:12,560 from what they're going through in the US. 943 00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,800 And then next week, we're going to be staying in the US and with 944 00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:18,440 mitigation banking as we're going to be joined by Adam 945 00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:21,640 Davis, who's the Managing Partner at Ecosystems Investment 946 00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:25,280 Partners as a private equity firm in the states with over a 947 00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:28,960 billion dollars in assets that's working in the mitigation 948 00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:33,120 banking markets in the US. And then we'll be on the home 949 00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:37,000 stretch with this season with our final guests possibly we say 950 00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:39,600 that and then squeeze another couple in and that's going to be 951 00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:44,320 Dorothy Masika at FSD Africa and then Justin Adams at Astara. 952 00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:46,960 But I hope you have a great week till next time.