Our Story

In 2016, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) created four pioneer projects to inform the development and implementation of the 25 Year Environment Plan. Greater Manchester was selected as the ‘Urban Pioneer’ which pulled together a number of partnerships and headline activities into a comprehensive and targeted programme of activity, sharing the learning and helping everyone make better decisions to protect and improve the environment.

A key priority at the start of the Urban Pioneer was the development of a set of natural capital accounts. These aim to measure the benefits provided by the city region’s natural assets to its businesses, public services and to those that call Greater Manchester home. We have done this so we know what we currently have and can monitor those natural assets over time, seeking improvement.

The Opportunity 

As part of delivering a place based approach, Greater Manchester partners made a commitment to embed a biodiversity net gain approach to the planning system across Greater Manchester and explore and demonstrate how this will deliver wider natural capital net gains and benefits to people’s health, wellbeing, prosperity and growth.

Through the Natural Course (EU Life funded programme) Greater Manchester pioneered the creation of the first Natural Capital Investment Plan (NCIP) for a UK city region to identify new opportunities to secure sustainable investment in its natural capital assets. A Greater Manchester Environment Fund is now being developed which will provide a mechanism to develop and implement these opportunities and unlock new and existing investment sources.

Through trialling the delivery of the Business in the Community Water Resilient Cities demonstrator Sustainable Urban Drainage project, the ground breaking IGNITION emerged which is looking to develop innovative financing solutions for investment in Greater Manchester’s natural environment. This investment will help to build the city region’s ability to adapt to the increasingly extreme impacts of climate change.

The need to develop and test a communications and engagement model that brought together sectors, organisations and the public to deliver more for the environment was a key priority of the Urban Pioneer. This included the creation of an online digital platform Nature Greater Manchester as well as supporting initiatives such as My Wild City and My Back Yard to engage with residents to increase understanding and access to the natural environment in their local community.

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