Suppose you had a decent sum of money to invest - say enough to buy a family house - and wanted to do something with positive environmental and ecological outcomes whilst also making money, what options are there?
I'm struggling to think of much more than tourism-related ventures - something like revegetating a denuded landscape that had an additional outdoor activity attraction.
Edit: ignore me I can't read!
Ok: proper answer. I think I would err towards investing via ethical funds such as Triodos, rather than the 'one pot for all' approach.
Buy some land and re-forest it?
That doesn’t really make money unless you sell the timber… but that’s not conservation.
Ok: proper answer. I think I would err towards investing via ethical funds such as Triodos, rather than the 'one pot for all' approach.
That sounds prudent. But not sure it’s necessarily active conservation
I think that your aims are muddled.
Are you wanting to invest and be hands off, and be able to liquidate your investments easily? Or are you wanting to use the money to start an eco-business, in which case you're likely to lose money and it won't be easy to get it back out, so couldn't really be classed as "investing"? Or finally are you wanting to use your money for environmental purposes to purchase an asset that you hope won't lose too much value when you want to take your money back out again?
Each is a different goal.
I’m not sure there are any. Eco-tourism is at best green washing a holiday as Im yet to see a carbon neutral holiday to anywhere further away than your back garden.
Forestry is just farming a different crop that takes longer to grow.
Ethical investments are probably as close as you can get, but you would need to understand what the investment product you used actually defines as ethical and some have more dubious definitions than others.
Buy a Golf course, tear all the turf up, rewild/replant it all with trees and meadows and put a Bike Park/Singletrack weaving through it all!
Looks at what Robert Fuller has done - he's built a pond, various owl sized nest boxes, stoat runs etc. Makes money from being an artist, wildlife cameraman and I guess an element of income from the live streams and subscribers.
I doubt there's much money to be made on just the streaming though, you'd need all the other elements.
do something with positive environmental and ecological outcomes whilst also making money, what options are there?
Hmm, I think that's an 'pick 2' situation. Like the timber suggestion a small solar farm might make money and is environmentally OK but limited ecology.
Looks at what Robert Fuller has done - he's built a pond, various owl sized nest boxes, stoat runs etc.
Personally I wouldnt count any of that as ecological or environmental. Its part way to being a zoo and interfering with the natural behaviour of the animals
Personally I wouldnt count any of that as ecological or environmental. Its part way to being a zoo and interfering with the natural behaviour of the animals
ha! I was along to post something similar. I dont know if id go quite as far, but yeah, how wild that setup is murky.
Similarly I did work with Aigas and John Lister-Kaye. He provides conservation and nature connection through providing exclusive holidays that drive 2000 miles a week round Scotland and staying in a drafty old pile with oil heating didn't seem quite as nature positive as I first thought...
https://www.aigas.co.uk/the-aigas-experience/john-lister-kaye/
Wind farm or other renewable energy?
If you've got enough money to buy a fairly large plot of land in a suitable location then it can be quite lucrative. I know of a charity that now gets a significant amount it's income from a large turbine (it's big up close, but to scale it's only a fraction of the size of a proper wind-farm turbine). The turbine company builds, owns, maintains and will eventually decommission it, but the charity makes something like £300k/year from their share (or maybe it saved them £300k in energy costs, or maybe it was £300k on the export after they'd had free energy, either way it was a significant amount of money for nothing and apart from the acre or so of land the turbine + access occupies the rest of the land could be re-wilded or put to another use.
The catch is you need enough land that the shadow it cast's falls on it for most of the day, you can't have the sun shining through the blades and strobing onto someone else.
Ethical investments are probably as close as you can get, but you would need to understand what the investment product you used actually defines as ethical and some have more dubious definitions than others.
Phillip Morris shares have done well the last few years, more dead people is better for the environment, but isn't particularly ethical.
Personally I wouldnt count any of that as ecological or environmental. Its part way to being a zoo and interfering with the natural behaviour of the animals
ha! I was along to post something similar. I dont know if id go quite as far, but yeah, how wild that setup is murky.
I kind of agree - the nest boxes with cameras are OK with me, but the extra feeding creates a non-natural environment. If chicks survive due to human provided food they'll have a hard time when they disperse.
I'm struggling to think of much more than tourism-related ventures - something like revegetating a denuded landscape that had an additional outdoor activity attraction.
Unfortunately I would vote for nothing obvious. There is quite a lot of money to be made from "ESG" with "carbon capture" and various other stuff which might tick the investment box but maybe not the conservation bit (see private eye and drax).
Short of buying someplace and doing a knapp with it I would guess its best to just invest the money as standard and then put some of the returns into conservation charities
Thanks all for the suggestions.
I think that your aims are muddled.
Are you wanting to invest and be hands off, and be able to liquidate your investments easily? Or are you wanting to use the money to start an eco-business, in which case you're likely to lose money and it won't be easy to get it back out, so couldn't really be classed as "investing"? Or finally are you wanting to use your money for environmental purposes to purchase an asset that you hope won't lose too much value when you want to take your money back out again?
Each is a different goal.
This is fair. Not interested in hands off investment.
Could potentially look at developing a business - although not a fan of the potential risk. If I was 20 years younger i'd love to have started a bike park.
I'm probably most closely aligned with purchasing an asset.
The most obvious thought is some woodland where a cottage with holiday rental potential in an area where a large-scale bike park/trails are scheduled for development (that's happening a bit in Oz). That way we could use it and make some income from it. I think that solves some of the ethical concerns too.
Are you sure that 300k is an accurate figure? That must have been a ridiculously favourable contract and terms to be earning that amount a year...
Just asking as I've been slightly involved in a single turbine and the yearly payback isn't anywhere close to that figure.
Are you sure that 300k is an accurate figure? That must have been a ridiculously favourable contract and terms to be earning that amount a year...
Just asking as I've been slightly involved in a single turbine and the yearly payback isn't anywhere close to that figure.
That's what I was told.
I just had a quick look and the 500kW turbine generates 1,800MWh/year and they use almost 800MWh on site , so even if they just replaced what they used at ~25p/kWh that's £200k.
And that conversation would have been had sometimes around the Ukraine invasion when business energy prices were ridiculous.
The most obvious thought is some woodland where a cottage with holiday rental potential in an area where a large-scale bike park/trails are scheduled for development (that's happening a bit in Oz). That way we could use it and make some income from it. I think that solves some of the ethical concerns too.
I don’t really see how that meets the brief in the OP, bike parks aren’t particularly eco friendly.
If you are in Oz, not sure how perception are for second homes but if I was scoring ethical ideas there are certainly people in the UK who would suggest it causes real issues in many rural areas.
It depends on the land and its current use. If we revegetated a decent sized grazed parcel adjoining a larger area of woodland for example.
I don’t really see how that meets the brief in the OP, bike parks aren’t particularly eco friendly.
If you are in Oz, not sure how perception are for second homes but if I was scoring ethical ideas there are certainly people in the UK who would suggest it causes real issues in many rural areas.
Depends on what you want to achieve and what you compare it to.
On the one hand center parks could be construed as an environmental nightmare.
~500 cars turning up from all over the country every weekend and mid-week, maybe 20,000-30,000 miles of driving if they've all driven for a couple of hours.
Heating those swimming pools will burn a lot of gas.
etc.
Looked at like that, the forest is at best a bit of green-washing around the edges of a very carbon intensive holiday. But on the other it's better than the same number of people flying to Europe for a city break.
At the end of the day people need holidays, people need to fly less, so catering for holidays in the UK is going to need to be a growing industry. And at least chalets / cabins / glamping aren't putting pressure on the local housing markets and services like AirB&B or holiday lets do.
Likewise a solar farm or wind turbine isn't great ecologically, but offsets against burning gas somewhere and means you can manage the land for other purposes without the need to make money from it, so a wind turbine on moor / heath / shrub land is probably ecologically better than the farmland it would otherwise be.
Eco-tourism is at best green washing a holiday as Im yet to see a carbon neutral holiday to anywhere further away than your back garden.
We've friends (she's a bit of an eco-warrior type... hemp this, bio that) who go to Tenerife, but justify it as it's an eco retreat.
Slow hand clap.
The catch is you need enough land that the shadow it cast's falls on it for most of the day, you can't have the sun shining through the blades and strobing onto someone else.
We parked up in the Appennino monetina One evening and woke to this bizarre stove effect. Stick my head out the window and saw we were in the shadow of the wind turbines. Really trippy effect.
The GF and are planning on buying a plot of land and letting it go feral.
If you're investing in conservation I don't know if you should expect a financial return.... The return on your investment should be plants and critters that benefit.
The GF and are planning on buying a plot of land and letting it go feral.
That's where my thoughts came from originally, as a teenager. I discovered it's a bit more complex in practice, depending on your philosophy regarding native/non-native, eradicating noxious weeds and pests (perhaps more so here in Australia given the species).
If you're investing in conservation I don't know if you should expect a financial return.... The return on your investment should be plants and critters that benefit.
We already have that in a way, by living on acreage with a voluntary conservation agreement. I'm pretty sure if we cleared all the forest, put up fences and had horse paddocks the place would be worth more! I wouldn't mind expanding the property by buying some of the neighbours forest and expanding the VCA, but that's not easily done.
I think the phrase you are looking for is "nature markets", OP.
There is a lot going on in the UK (not without risk, but also not without significant interest). I think from your link you shared, you are in Australia though. Not sure on the state of things out there if you want to be hands-on - but the UK situation might give you some helpful ideas?
Thanks good tip. We have a national Nature Repair Market. It’s worth us looking at.
On the one hand center parks could be construed as an environmental nightmare.
Looked at like that, the forest is at best a bit of green-washing around the edges of a very carbon intensive holiday. But on the other it's better than the same number of people flying to Europe for a city break.
I don’t think “less bad” fulfils the original brief.
really we don’t (we may need rest and time off but we don’t actually have any pathological reason to travel to rest). We want holidays, we like holidaying, and we are told by marketing people that we should do it but it really isn’t essential - plenty of other cultures survive without holidaying, other species don’t seem compelled to do it. Not that I have a fundamental issue with people having holidays but it’s not essential. The OP wasn’t proposing opening a centre parks or even a camp site to reduce air travel. It’s a harsh reality that some of this forum need reminding of that whilst bikes can be a particularly efficient green form of transport - if you have to drive to use your bike, it’s probably not!At the end of the day people need holidays,
It depends on the land and its current use. If we revegetated a decent sized grazed parcel adjoining a larger area of woodland for example.
is it making you money? What happened to the food production that used to be on the land? Very local ecology benefit doesn’t always translate to any actually planetary benefit - if we eliminated every cow from the UK it wouldn’t stop people eating beef, they would just buy probably more intensively reared beef from other countries that has huge food miles to get there, and the farmer no longer has slurry to put on other crops so turns to chemical fertilisers instead etc.
im not telling you not to do it but that you should do the stuff you believe in that suits your lifestyle, financial means, interests etc because you can’t realisitically invest, make money, and genuinely get true eco benefits.
I don’t think “less bad” fulfils the original brief.
"something with positive environmental and ecological outcomes whilst also making money, what options are there?"
Everything is "less bad" in that context, it'll always be slightly worse than just buying land, letting it go wild and putting it in some sort of eternal trust. And even that could get complicated, if people were employed to actively manage the land then that management has a carbon footprint, as do they. Reduced ad absurdum, you can't win.
So the problem needs defining, is it the biggest carbon saving, the largest net biodiversity gain, the largest or longest term carbon sequestration, and what financial return on investment is acceptable? Is buying greenbelt as a landbank acceptable assuming it will be developed eventually? Does it need to generate passive income or is it a business.
really we don’t (we may need rest and time off but we don’t actually have any pathological reason to travel to rest). We want holidays, we like holidaying, and we are told by marketing people that we should do it but it really isn’t essential - plenty of other cultures survive without holidaying, other species don’t seem compelled to do it. Not that I have a fundamental issue with people having holidays but it’s not essential. The OP wasn’t proposing opening a centre parks or even a camp site to reduce air travel. It’s a harsh reality that some of this forum need reminding of that whilst bikes can be a particularly efficient green form of transport - if you have to drive to use your bike, it’s probably not!
I agree, but the definition of sustainability includes meeting peoples needs. And for over a hundred years now we've figured out that in the modern world that means paid time off to avoid burn-out, generally spent somewhere that isn't at home. You won't win any argument telling people that their 5 weeks off should be spent reading a second hand book in the garden. So offering holidays that don't burn through your annual sustainable carbon footprint in a single all inclusive week is a good thing.
And yep, I'm the one regularly making the point that a trip to Glentress has a higher carbon footprint than a new made-in-China carbon bike so worrying about the environmental impact of a metal Vs carbon frames is pointless twiddling in the margins.
Interestingly we had a speaker at our nature group last night, who had purchased half a dairy farm near us. They are a young family who made a bit of money from a business giving them enough funds to buy 180 acres. Their bit of the farm is in the long process of re-wilding.
They make money from having an educational forest school and outdoor day centre for people with special needs. They sell eggs and other food grown from the land. No mention of tourist accommodation, but the wife gives talks on conservation and green issues (which is what we enjoyed last night) which she gets paid for. They also rent a few acres to a conservation charity to graze the charities sheep and keep pigs (for turning over the land) for meat. She didn't talk too much about how the family earns a living but more about re-wilding and giving the land back to nature, planting 1,000's of trees (the correct trees and in the correct place), planting hedgerows (the money for this came from conservation charities such as the woodland trust and wildlife trust). It's all in a 20-25 year plan (they are 7 years in).
Regarding buying land to let go and leave to nature, we all know that is not how it happens. There is a lot more to it than that.
The book 'Wilding' by Isabella Tree is a superb book and worth reading if anyone wants to buy land and give back to nature.
Thanks for the input. It's useful.
So the problem needs defining, is it the biggest carbon saving, the largest net biodiversity gain, the largest or longest term carbon sequestration, and what financial return on investment is acceptable? Is buying greenbelt as a landbank acceptable assuming it will be developed eventually? Does it need to generate passive income or is it a business.
This is a good point.
The default investments here are typically residential properties and shares. I'm not comfortable with either of those for various reasons.
So I'm considering what is "better" than those options. Maybe a step up from 'less bad' but it doesn't need to be an attempt to save the world, but trying to not make it worse would be good.
Financial return would be anything that doesn't go backwards for passive income, but for a business it would need to sustain a family... and i'm not sure whether we're a bit long in the teeth to go into something now.
This is something I thought about briefly. It was for sale a few years back at a reasonable price for 180 acres with infrastructure - it had some really good tracks and hosted some great enduro races...and was an Outdoor Education Centre. If you can use the land to give people opportunities or education in nature I think that can be positive. I get the impression that it's still available but would be a bit beyond us and a significant management effort.
