Introducing: the QBE Buyers Club
Nature Broking has structured and brokered the UK insurance sector's first value-chain nature restoration consortium, the QBE Buyers Club. It brings together nine firms from an insurance claims value chain, including Clyde & Co, DWF, Keoghs, Davies,Sedgwick, Prism Claims Groupand FMG, to co-invest in nature restoration at Boothby Wildland in Lincolnshire over the next 50 years.
Working with rewilding company Nattergal, we structured the investment to fund carbon removal across 18 dedicated acres of the 600-hectare former arable farm, expected to sequester up to 1,250 tonnes of CO2e over the fifty years. Land once intensively farmed and severely degraded is being restored into a mosaic of grassland, wetland, woodland and scrub, with target outcomes including increased soil organic carbon stocks, measurable nature recovery, and improved water quality and natural flood management. Additionallty, beavers have already been reintroduced to the West Glen river.
The design draws on independent evidence, including Agricarbon's soil sampling at the Knepp Estate, that rewilded land can sequester carbon at rates comparable to newly planted woodland, and the 50-year horizon reflects the ecology: it takes sustained commitment to progress past initial habitat recovery into a functioning ecosystem.
While it is the first consortium of its kind, Nature Broking designed this framework to be applied across other sectors and value chains, opening the door to further opportunities for nature restoration at scale.
Abi Duff-Walker, Head of Sustainability at DWF: ‘Our investment in Boothby helps us to deliver against some of the core objectives of our strategy to tackle climate change and nature loss. The long term commitment to the project also helps us to demonstrate to our key stakeholders that we take our responsibility seriously to play a part in creating a more positive future for the benefit of our colleagues, clients and the communities in which we work. We also hope that the innovative partnership that we have established as part of the QBE buyers club inspires our peers and other businesses to take action and amplify impact for the benefit of people and the planet.’
Gillie Fairbrother, Chief Responsible Business Officer at Davies Group: ‘We were attracted to this project because we look to support initiatives that create lasting and measurable change. As a group we were drawn to Boothby because it delivers far more than carbon benefits. Its positive impact on biodiversity, land stewardship and natural ecosystems makes it a truly sustainable long-term investment. Many organisations are looking at carbon offsetting solutions, but we wanted to support a project that goes a step further by investing in a project that helps remove and store carbon over the long term.’
Luke Baldwin, Chief Executive Officer at Nature Broking: ‘The voluntary carbon market works best when buyers are connected to the land they're funding. The QBE Buyers Club is a supply chain investing together in a project that is verifiably and tangibly theirs.’
Site engagement
The consortium also enables members to engage employees in sustainability initiatives, with the opportunity to visit Boothby Wildland twice a year to see the recovery in action and participate in on-site volunteering projects.
We recently brought together the members to celebrate the launch of the consortium at Boothby Wildland. In glorious sunshine, we toured the reserve with the Nattergal team, exploring the wider site and the specific areas that the co-investment supports. The highlight was seeing the beavers' handiwork up close along the West Glen river, evidence of a landscape steadily repairing itself.
Press
Within 48 hours of launch, the announcement reached nearly one million readers, with coverage across publications including Business Green, Carbon Pulse, Legal Futures, Insurance Post, Insurance Business, The Lawyer and Solicitors Journal.
