Building Nature at Scale: From Partnership to Platform

Building Nature at Scale: From Partnership to Platform

Reflections from a Bregal Sphere, Imperative and PUR reception, held during London Climate Action Week 2026.

The question is not whether nature has value, it’s who the agents of change are

The fact that nature has economic value is obvious. What separates an investable project from a promising one is execution: whether a developer can deliver the same quality of outcomes in its tenth project as in its first, in a different region, under different conditions. 

Developer partnerships are at the core of Bregal Sphere’s strategy precisely because that repeatability is rare and hard to underwrite. Getting the required capital into the sector depends on that trust being earned project by project, and only the most sophisticated developers are positioned to achieve it.

Nature-based delivery can borrow discipline, but not certainty

Most large infrastructure projects, across every industry, miss their schedule or budget. Nature-based restoration has no immunity against that pattern unless it imports the discipline mature capital-intensive sectors already apply – rigorous planning before a shovel goes in the ground, and standardisation of everything that can be standardised, from contract terms to execution process. 

This infrastructure-grade approach is central to how Imperative operates, applying the project engineering and delivery controls of major capital projects to large-scale ecosystem restoration That approach is now being tested at scale on Spekboom, one of the world's largest restoration projects. 

What resists standardisation is the asset itself. Ecological variability, weather and the pace of community relationships do not behave like engineered systems. Scaling from 100 hectares to 100,000 means building tolerance for that unpredictability.

The sector should study social impact as closely as it studies carbon

Extractive industries have decades of experience negotiating structured, benefit-sharing and knowledge-transfer agreements with local communities, built up over a long, often difficult history. 

Nature-based developers can sometimes lean on good intent alone, but there is more to gain from studying what has worked elsewhere, including in industries the sector would not naturally look to for lessons.

Demand still needs a stronger, less voluntary narrative

None of this scales without a clearer commercial case for buyers. There needs to be an agreed standard of what constitutes a high-quality project, in the way the renewables sector long ago settled on what a solar farm or a wind farm looks like. 

A shared specification lets buyers and developers trust each other's numbers without renegotiating first principles each time. Demand itself is the other constraint. The sector's reliance on voluntary buyers is a structural weakness, and compliance-linked signals – from aviation to the EU to Brazil – are what will sustain it once energy prices, inflation and political pressure make voluntary commitments harder to justify.

What ties it together

Across all three contributions, the same conclusion recurred: meaningful scale cannot be achieved project by project, but through platforms. Aligning the right developers, systems and capital is what allows high-quality projects repeat without delivery risk compounding as they multiply. 

We are grateful to Imperative and PUR for co-hosting, and to everyone who joined us for the discussion. 

About Bregal Sphere

Bregal Sphere is an impact investing platform launched by Bregal Investments — a global investment firm managing over €19 billion AUM across multiple private markets strategies in North America and Europe. As a leading institutional natural capital investor, Bregal Sphere partners with leading nature-based project developers to deliver large-scale carbon removal projects that generate measurable positive impact for nature, climate, and local communities, alongside financial returns. For more information about Bregal Sphere, visit www.bregalsphere.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

About Imperative

Imperative, the Nature Infrastructure Company™, designs, develops, and operates large-scale ecosystem restoration projects across multiple jurisdictions. The company applies an infrastructure-grade approach to carbon removal — combining rigorous project engineering, vertically integrated operations, and institutional-quality standards to deliver high-integrity carbon credits with measurable biodiversity and community outcomes. Imperative's projects are independently rated by BeZero Carbon and registered under Verra's Verified Carbon Standard. For more information about Imperative, visit www.imperativeinc.com or follow on LinkedIn.

About PUR

Founded in 2008, PUR is a certified B Corp, a nature-based solutions company and a pioneer of insetting. PUR helps companies and investors turn climate and nature commitments into measurable, field-based transformation within supply chains and across wider landscapes.

Working with farmers, communities and local partners, PUR designs and implements high-integrity projects that strengthen supply-chain resilience, restore ecosystems and support livelihoods. With nearly two decades of experience across 30 countries, its programmes have supported 150,000 farmers, reached 105,000 hectares and enabled the planting of 42 million trees.

Backed by Bregal Sphere, PUR is building a trusted global nature-based implementation platform. For more information about PUR, visit www.pur.co or follow on LinkedIn.