Nominee Summary
Kana Earth is building the digital infrastructure needed to unlock private investment into nature restoration. The platform addresses major barriers in the natural capital market, including fragmented data, inconsistent pricing and inefficient coordination, by connecting asset managers, corporates and supply-side participants in one streamlined system. By de-risking investments and standardising project delivery, Kana Earth enables capital to be deployed confidently at scale, with the ambition of making nature a core component of every investment portfolio. At a time of escalating climate and biodiversity risk, Kana Earth is accelerating high-quality nature restoration while supporting resilient ecosystems and long-term sustainable land management.
Reduction of carbon footprint
Kana Earth actively reduces its carbon footprint through both the impact of its platform and its own operational practices. By digitising and streamlining the management of nature restoration projects, the platform improves project operational efficiency by approximately 80%. This allows project developers to spend significantly more time on the ground delivering and scaling high-quality nature projects, accelerating carbon sequestration while restoring biodiversity. Operationally, Kana Earth has adopted a low-carbon working model. The team works remotely as standard, with optional access to a shared co-working space in London one day per week for those who can easily commute. This approach substantially reduces daily commuting emissions and avoids the need for a permanent office. With team members based across Scotland and England, in-person meetings are carefully planned and consolidated so that multiple meetings and activities are scheduled together, minimising travel frequency and associated emissions. By combining digital efficiency that enables greater climate impact with conscious, low-emission business operations, Kana Earth demonstrates a practical commitment to reducing its carbon footprint while supporting wider emissions reduction through nature-based solutions.
Overcoming challenges
Kana Earth has overcome significant challenges inherent in operating within rapidly evolving natural capital markets. These markets are defined by emerging standards and advancing scientific methodologies, creating complexity for both investors and project developers. Rather than building a static platform, Kana Earth developed NatureScript, a flexible coding framework that enables rapid integration of new scientific standards as they emerge. This adaptability allows the platform to evolve alongside developing sectors such as natural flood management, ensuring investment can be operationalised at scale as markets mature. A further challenge has been the limited understanding of natural capital as it transitions from an allocation held by specialist funds into a core component of institutional portfolios. To address this, Kana Earth convened leading asset managers to co-author “Natural Capital: A Guide to Institutional Investors”. The guide provides a clear, practical framework for institutions considering allocations, building shared understanding and confidence across the market. Kana Earth has since expanded this work through investor roundtables, with further sessions planned for 2026. As nature investing remains a new and emerging sector, Kana Earth has gone beyond technology delivery to provide hands-on consultancy support. John Goffin delivers consultancy to a consortium of natural capital market leaders led by Fife Coast & Countryside Trust, funded through FIRNS 3. This public–private partnership is establishing the Fife Environment Bank, creating a local supply of biodiversity net gain and carbon credits to unlock investment in nature restoration and regenerative agriculture, supported by Kana Earth’s platform. In response to criticism of carbon markets for excluding local communities, Kana Earth also contributed to the development and digitisation of the Community Inclusion Standard (CIS). Funded by NatureScot and The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the CIS ensures transparent, verifiable community inclusion, strengthening project integrity and enabling responsible capital to flow into nature.
The benefit and the next steps
Running Kana Earth as a digitally enabled, low-carbon and impact-led business has delivered clear benefits both operationally and environmentally. By operating a fully digital platform and adopting remote-first working practices, Kana Earth has significantly reduced travel emissions and resource use, while attracting a geographically diverse team with deep expertise across natural capital, technology and finance. This approach has increased organisational resilience and allowed the business to scale efficiently without compromising its environmental values. The platform itself creates systemic benefits by reducing friction across the natural capital market, enabling capital to flow more quickly and confidently into high-quality nature restoration projects. This accelerates carbon sequestration, biodiversity recovery and climate resilience, while supporting landowners and local communities. Embedding standards such as the Community Inclusion Standard has further strengthened project integrity and long-term impact. Looking ahead, Kana Earth’s next steps focus on deepening climate impact at scale. This includes integrating additional nature codes, expanding into emerging sectors such as natural flood management, and entering new geographical markets. By doing so, Kana Earth will support a wider range of investors to confidently allocate capital to nature. The business will also continue to advance natural capital market investment by improving standards, transparency and efficiency, ensuring private capital plays a decisive role in combating climate change and halting ecological decline.