Building the Nature Economy
The global economy, human wellbeing and individual dreams – they all depend on nature’s vitality. Trillions of dollars are needed to restore and protect nature so that it thrives again.
An amount that we today consider too high a cost to bear. Turning nature restoration from a cost to an attractive investment, square meter by square meter of land – that is the vision of The Landbanking Group.
The first global depository for nature
We went back to history and took a careful look at the financial system in order to understand what created large markets, and how they scaled. Much is linked to the work of custodian banks. Custody is the oldest and most noble function of a bank.
These banks helped buyers and sellers to build trust, develop a market infrastructure and shoulder transaction risks. This is done by taking an asset into custody – giving it informational and legal substance, safekeeping it, tracking individual positions, supporting transactions and arranging settlements.
The more complex, intangible and volatile an asset was, the more a custodian was needed to build a liquid market.
Nature is critical to any value chain, and any investment or insurance portfolio - but it is complex, intangible and volatile. It’s here that we need a custodian function.
Custody is the oldest and most noble function of a bank.
An end-to-end chain of custody for nature assets
The Landbanking Group is dedicated to build the technological, legal and trust infrastructure for investments into nature futures. We offer land stewards an opportunity to feel valued and rewarded for treating nature well.
Through us, they sell verifiable claims on nature improvement or preservation claims (hydrosphere “water”, pedosphere “soil”, atmosphere “climate” and – especially – biosphere “biodiversity“).
Buyers – these are strategic insetters, offsetters, commodity buyers, investors and insurers – all critically in need of nature’s services - can buy these verifiable claims in order to ensure they have a long position on nature services: crop producers with healthy soil and lower supply risks, biodiversity improvement claims that neutralize the portfolio footprint, securities backed by ecosystem services delivery contracts, or nature assets in flood protected watersheds. Through the latest natural capital assessment technologies and our custody approach of The Landbanking Group, any of these can improve the balance sheet and thus the value of the business.
An integrated market infrastructure for nature transactions
The Landbanking Group has developed a novel approach that is rooted in custodian bank ethics and supported by latest technology. It rests on five integrated services.
Collect every polygon (track) of land
The Landler.io is a spatial database able to onboard every plot of land globally and classify the biome / ecosystem type
Assess the polygon
Based on Earth observation and supported by ground truthing, we assess the bio-physical state across a set of defined parameters
Register a Natural Capital Account
The biophysical stock will be registered and turned into a digital representation, an account that is consistent with IUCN, CICES and TNFD requirements and meaningful with regard to buyer demands . Natural Capital Accounts are updated regularly with biophysical monitoring data and they serve as reference for Nature Savings Accounts.
Open a Nature Savings Account
Any seller and buyer of nature services can register a Nature Savings Account license. It accrues value as nature outcomes, insured by a buffer pool, are verified through results-based measurements. When the claims are verified the degree of assessment confidence is given. In aggregation, they represent a tradeable net position on positive nature outcomes.
Receive custody services to nature transactions
The claims can now be traded between land stewards and (primary or secondary) buyers of nature services. This is done on the basis of The Landbanking Group’s trusted claims depository. Based on this depository, all claims are stored, traced, valued, transacted and settled, all based on a protocol borrowed from established depository banks and backed by required financial market licenses.