Covering over 1,600 square kilometres of England, the South Downs National Park is made up of rolling hills, heathland, woodlands, river valleys, and the white cliffs of the Heritage Coast. It has the largest National Park population, boasts a rich variety of wildlife and habitats, and has been uniquely shaped by centuries of farming.

It’s the perfect location for woodland restoration and habitat building.

As part of a £500,000 commitment to Revere, Palladium’s partnership with the UK National Parks to restore nature at scale, Estée Lauder Companies UK & Ireland recently announced the launch of an innovative financing platform to create woodlands in the South Downs National Park. The project is the second to be supported by the company as part of its five year commitment and will contribute significantly to the UK’s journey to achieving Net Zero by sequestering carbon and other greenhouse gases.

“Woodland makes up almost a quarter of the South Downs National Park and this incredible treescape provides vital habitats for so many plants and animals, as well as being a huge ‘carbon sink’ for the southeast of England,” explains Trevor Beattie, Chief Executive of the South Downs National Park Authority. “We want bigger, more joined up woodland habitats. This innovative partnership is a significant step forward to achieving our long-term goal of reversing biodiversity decline and being more resilient to climate change.”

The platform will pull together many individual tree planting sites to create an interconnected habitat of native woodland across the National Park. It will support land managers and local communities by providing them with a sustainable and reliable source of additional income from payments for ecosystem services, such as carbon credits.

The first stage of funding will support Revere to design a payment mechanism to manage long term income flows for land managers, and work closely with surveyors and groundworks teams to ensure the project is implemented smoothly and sustainably.

“We have to restore our natural habitats—quickly and at scale—and private finance is essential,” says Andrew Sutherland, Palladium Director of Nature-Based Solutions. “That’s why Palladium brings together organisations like The Estee Lauder Companies UK & Ireland with authorities like UK National Parks, landowners, and communities to overcome the barriers that block large scale investment into nature restoration.”

Estée Lauder Companies UK & Ireland has pledged £100,000 to this particular project and is guaranteeing a further £300,000 to be spent on other nature restoration projects throughout the UK’s National Parks over the next three years, in addition to last year’s support on projects in the Lake District National Park. “The South Downs platform will enable more landowners and farmers to participate in woodland creation, transforming the pace and scale of this work for years to come,” Sutherland adds.

The more organisations and investors like Estée Lauder Companies UK & Ireland participate in natural capital markets and invest in projects like Revere, the more those markets will develop and mature, further unlocking the value of nature – one of our best answers to the climate and biodiversity crises globally.

For more information, read the press release, or contact info@thepalladiumgroup.com.