Agile logo, springbok jumping Oxford Martin School logo with circles Oxford University lgoo with emblem

SDG: 15 Life on land

Life on land

For farmers and others committed to transforming our food systems, the term regenerative agriculture (RA) has become a unifying concept and one which has enabled a wider community of producers, retailers, financers and others to embrace an agenda of change. But how confident are we in regenerative agriculture’s environmental and productivity claims? And what would a regenerative shift in UK agriculture mean for our food system as a whole?

Farm-level confidence in RA’s farm-scale benefits seems high, and research on regenerative practices is growing. However, modelling struggles to navigate uneven agro-ecological data and the complexities of context-specific solutions, while the focus on farm-level data often positions RA as a purely agricultural concern.

Calls for new food policy demand connection between food, health and environment, and the incentivisation of a just transition in what we grow and what we eat. The effects of a regenerative shift in UK food supply across diverse farm systems will have both local and global consequences for food affordability, availability, nutritional quality and supply stability, as well as for land use.

This Sprint aimed to clarify if and how RA can lead to greater alignment between land and environmental goals on the one hand, and food and nutrition security on the other, while identifying what policies would enable a just transition for the sector and for those it supplies.

Working with various partners and stakeholders, the research team from TABLE explored diverse visions of RA and investigate their implications for the UK food system and its impacts overseas. Through deliberative workshops and wide engagement, we produced an account of what these visions and associated practices imply for society. What would the different versions of regenerative agriculture identified mean for the composition, quality and affordability of our diets, for our environment and the species we farm and share it with? What policy and supply system needs, risks and opportunities would be entailed? We asked modellers and practitioners to consider the indicators available to mark progress in relation to different versions of RA. Recognising the mistrust sometimes at play between researchers and practitioners, we asked this group to explore how far the preferred RA futures can be measured, analysed and understood by modelling.

A collaboratively developed picture of regenerative agriculture and its implications can enable greater confidence in the development of food policy integrated with environmental and social aims, drive more rigorous private sector strategies, and support civil society in holding both government and other sectors to account.

Why this SPRINT? Why now?

There is considerable interest, among public and private actors, in regenerative agriculture (RA) as a route to achieving land-based goals around net zero, biodiversity, soil health and climate resilience, matched by corporate commitments and increasing investments in research. However, the potential system-level implications of a shift towards regenerative farming remain unclear.

As a new government grapples with calls for comprehensive food policy, and the response and implementation periods for strategic publications such as the Land Use Framework and CCC reports play out in the next two years, there is a receptive policy environment for approaches that can genuinely connect environmental, health and social goals. Increasingly public corporate commitments on RA suggest space for private-public collaboration on these goals too; however, concerns and differences remain around the potential for greenwashing and the nature of the farming systems and types of transition desired.

Co-design and engagement enabled this project to contribute to a better environment for collaboration on RA between private, public and third sectors.

We worked directly with partners The Food Foundation and Green Alliance. We also collaborated closely with a core stakeholder group that included FAIRR, Nestle, the Soil Association, Waitrose, the John Innes Centre & Norwich Institute for Sustainable Development, Landworkers’ Alliance, Pasture-fed Livestock Association, Nature-friendly Farming Network, British Ecological Society, and the RSPB.

the challenge

Finance is a major driver of biodiversity loss. It also has the potential to be a powerful lever for delivering nature-positive outcomes. 

However, a significant nature-finance gap remains. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework highlights the need to reduce harmful subsidies, improve how financial institutions account for their impacts on nature, and increase investment in nature recovery. 

Achieving this requires both “greening finance” and “financing green”. Yet there is limited evidence on how these approaches can be implemented effectively in practice. 

This creates a challenge for policymakers, including Defra. There is a need for clear, actionable insights to align UK financial flows with biodiversity goals and international commitments. 

At the same time, the policy landscape is evolving rapidly. New mechanisms, such as the proposed Nature Restoration Fund, signal a shift towards more strategic, landscape-scale approaches. While this creates opportunities, it also introduces risks. Poor design or implementation could lead to unintended consequences and undermine biodiversity outcomes. 

The challenge for the Sprint was therefore to generate policy-relevant evidence on how to reduce the biodiversity impacts of financial flows, mobilise private investment, and ensure that interventions work together coherently at scale.

the solutions

The Sprint delivered a set of integrated tools and insights to support policymakers in aligning financial systems with biodiversity outcomes. By combining detailed data analysis with stakeholder engagement and policy design, the team delivered the following: 

  • A granular methodology to quantify biodiversity impacts of financial flows, linking investments from UK banks to ecosystem vulnerabilities across regions and supply chains.  
  • A high-resolution dataset using financial data from six UK banks to support targeted regulatory interventions under the “greening finance” agenda.  
  • The world’s largest database of nature restoration funds, providing new evidence on how such mechanisms operate globally.  
  • Empirical insights into nature markets, including incentive structures, governance models, and cost dynamics.  
  • Practical recommendations to help inform the implementation of the UK’s Nature Restoration Fund, including approaches to metrics, risk-sharing, and alignment with Local Nature Recovery Strategies.  

Together, these outputs provided clearer and actionable evidence for how financial and policy interventions can be designed and implemented in practice. 

The work also showed that UK financial flows contribute to biodiversity loss internationally, highlighting the need for coordinated regulation, improved disclosure, and stronger policy alignment. It identified trade-offs within emerging biodiversity markets, demonstrating that effective design must balance inclusivity with strategic coordination at scale.

the pathway

The Sprint followed an interdisciplinary pathway designed to connect analytical rigour with real-world policy application. It combined quantitative modelling with qualitative and participatory approaches to ensure outputs were both robust and usable. 

The work began with high-resolution financial data, including loans, bonds, and equity investments. These were combined with ecosystem service vulnerability models to identify how financial flows interact with biodiversity risks. This provided a strong evidence base for understanding nature-related dependencies within financial systems. 

Building on this, the Sprint examined how nature-positive finance could be scaled. This included mapping incentives, costs, and governance structures within emerging nature markets. Stakeholder engagement in Oxfordshire and analysis of international restoration funds ensured that insights were grounded in practice. 

These findings were then applied to live policy development. In particular, they have helped to shape plans for the implementation of the UK’s proposed Nature Restoration Fund. 

Finally, participatory scenario workshops brought together stakeholders to explore how different policy and financial interventions could work in combination. This helped identify coherent, landscape-scale approaches to delivering biodiversity outcomes. 

This pathway ensured that evidence generation, stakeholder engagement, and policy design were closely integrated throughout. 

what happened next?

Following the Sprint, one member of the team is now part of the Nature Restoration Fund’s scientific advisory team. Engagement with local finance market stakeholders through another Sprint member’s DPhil linked with the Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership aims to inform a more equity-centric framework for collaborative and strategic nature recovery. While international uptake remains dependent on wider geopolitical factors, the Sprint has established a strong foundation for future progress. The approach has clear potential to inform biodiversity finance policy in other national contexts as similar frameworks are developed.