Solving SME nature positive finance: A UK green innovation perspective

Journal paper by Robyn Owen, Suman Lodh and Amy Burnett
Sustainable Futures, Vol 11 | June 2026

Summary

Robyn Owen, Suman Lodh and Amy Burnett ask why small businesses—making up almost all UK private enterprises and contribute to over half of greenhouse gas emissions—are still largely absent from green finance policy?

Drawing on 80 interviews across the UK finance ecosystem and 10 case studies of innovative ecological services companies, they trace how nature-positive investment actually moves (or doesn’t) through the system. They find a situation of ‘trickle down’ that moves far too slowly, a bottom-up wave of remarkable SME innovators whose biodiversity measurement services are ahead of regulation, and a persistent gap at the middle where private finance waits for first-movers to kick start action.

The core argument of the paper is that without science-based targets for biodiversity—the equivalent of what tCO2e did for climate—the finance market has no reliable way to price nature. That has to change, and the SMEs developing eDNA, acoustic and sensor-based ecological services are the ones who can help unlock it.

The study also makes the case for venture launchpads, accelerators and public-private co-finance that genuinely serve early-stage green innovators—not just the large businesses that already have sustainability teams and corporate resourcing behind them.

Further Reading