Amy, EnTrade’s Market Development Director, is driven to deliver innovative solutions that balance the needs of nature and people. With more than 20 years’ experience in leadership roles in the environmental sector and with Defra, Natural England and the Wildlife Trusts, Amy is well placed to increase the scale and impact of EnTrade’s Environmental Markets.
EnTrade has recently been chosen to take part in the BSI’s Early Adopter Pilot Programme for Nature Investment Standards.
Together with the Environment Bank; Evenload Landscape Recovery; Native Aqua; Wilder Carbon in partnership with Nattergal and the Peatland Code in partnership with Ridge Carbon and Zulu Ecosystems, we will be helping trial the adoption of BSI Flex 701 (and the supporting Flex standards in development).
We’re delighted to have been asked to play a key role in driving the adoption of the standard more broadly. It is a great opportunity to help the BSI better understand the future direction of a Nature Investment Standards and also gives us the chance to test our own alignment.
Although the BSI Early Adopter Pilot is not a formal assurance process; there’s no pass or fail, and completion of this process does not result in a formal certification or claim of conformance, being involved is testament to the work we’ve done to date in our own pilot nature markets of Solent, Somerset and Bristol Avon. The benefits of learning, testing, and improving in a pilot environment should never be underestimated.
During a pilot programme the importance of open and honest feedback is key across all stakeholders. Similarly, creating the time to review and assess is critical. The sharing of these experiences then helps evolve the vision and create a more robust framework for nature markets to operate fairly, transparently and efficiently.
Our Solent Nutrient Pilot (ended 31st March 2023) demonstrated the value of running such a programme. It provided valuable insights into the delivery of mitigation projects a blueprint for successfully engaging with farmers, landowners, and local authorities, modelling and mapping, and the design of market mechanisms for trading nutrient credits. Learnings from our pilot have been applied to the national Nutrient Mitigation Scheme led by Natural England. The Government also welcomed EnTrade’s participation in this market as we brought together a team of experts in market design and operation, environmental land management, landowner engagement and communications.
The BSI has created a Nature Investment Standards Hub for the Early Adopter pilot participants to collate their feedback. The hub aids in developing a framework of standards that will bring rigor to projects supplying units of environmental benefit for use or trade in nature markets. At EnTrade, we developed our own digital market platform where landholders and credit buyers submit projects and bids, facilitating the bidding and price settlement process.
In addition to the market platform, we’ve established an online library. This knowledge-sharing repository holds our legal documents as well as the support webinars and tools created by our team of experts and key collaborators including; Wheatley Young Partners, who worked with us to develop the Catchment Market High Level Design, Market Rules, legal framework and other Market Instruments. In addition, it holds the Legal Agreements we’ve developed with Wheatley Young Partners and with legal expertise provided by Wessex Water and Osbourne Clarke.
We’re very much looking forward to supporting the BSI with their Nature Investment Standards pilot programme. From our own experience, pilot programmes are vital in allowing organisations and researchers to test and refine new ideas, products, or policies on a small scale before full-scale implementation, consequently reducing risks, costs and providing valuable data for improvement.
Amy Coulthard (LinkedIn)
Market Development Director, EnTrade
November 2025
