The Bunloit Estate has joined Trustable Credit to co-develop and test digital data standards for gathering, measurement, analysis and storage.

“We are firm believers that eventually we will need to see credit ratings applied to nature-based credit schemes – and I know that WWF and Bloomberg among others have highlighted the need for these”, says Ben Hart, Carbon and Biodiversity Accounting Consultant at Bunloit.

Ben is a carbon and energy reduction specialist with 12 years’ experience working with a range of clients in the private and public arenas, supporting them on their net-zero carbon reduction journeys. He is currently working with a number of high-impact organisations across the sector, supporting the development of advanced Natural Capital mapping and monitoring solutions.

Jeremy Leggett is Executive Director at Bunloit, and is a social entrepreneur, writer and climate campaigner. Before embarking on the Bunloit project in March 2020, he founded Solarcentury (1998-2020), one of the world’s most respected solar energy companies, winner of a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation.

“We are investing to create new jobs whilst conducting innovative research into nature based solutions, aiming to boost the local economy as we go. We began a twelve-month consultation period in March 2020, conferring with conservation groups, scientists, expert ecologists, government and the local community”.

Bunloit has the opportunity to create credits through improvement projects. However, they have to be validated improvements against a verified baseline, and digital device and data standards will be crucial to this.