From Renewables to Nature: How Do We Scale the Next Mainstream Asset Class?
Session Description
Aldo Beolchini shared lessons from his 20 years co-founding NextEnergy Group, one of the larger integrated renewable energy players, and his current transition into natural capital through Reforest-Italy and Highlands Rewilding. Drawing a direct parallel between how renewable energy scaled from a policy-driven niche into a mainstream institutional asset class, and where nature and carbon markets sit today, he walked through the enablers and risks that could shape whether nature completes a similar journey: capital structures, standards, regulatory stability, and how ecosystem value ultimately gets priced and monetised. The session opened up into audience discussion and debate on returns, market design, and what buyers are actually paying for when they invest in nature.
Speakers
Aldo Beolchini, Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Reforest-Italy
Watch the Session Recording
Key Takeaways
Aldo's core comparison: renewables became a mainstream asset class once projects were cheaper than fossil alternatives on their own economic merits, not because of subsidy. Nature and carbon markets need to reach an equivalent point where ecosystem value is priced and monetisable without relying on concessionary or philanthropic capital.
UK BNG was repeatedly held up as the most advanced biodiversity market globally specifically because it's compulsory, tied to a legal requirement (offsetting development impact) rather than a voluntary commitment. The EU is reportedly working on comparable guidelines.
On returns: Aldo pushed back on the idea that nature investments need venture-style returns. He argued institutional capital (pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds) actively wants the same stable high-single-digit to low-double-digit returns that mature renewables now deliver, and that very high return expectations (20%+) would actually signal instability rather than attractiveness.
A recurring audience question, essentially "what does a wetland actually sell that people want to buy," surfaced a real gap: unlike electricity, most nature outcomes don't have an obvious buyer or compliance mechanism outside specific markets like UK BNG. One proposed answer was to value nature through its effect on adjacent, monetisable assets or outcomes (for example, wetlands reducing flood risk to nearby infrastructure, or regenerative agriculture increasing the nutritional density and value of food).
An audience show-of-hands on the "most underdeveloped enabler" for nature markets favoured policy and binding commitments over standards, capital availability, or credible project pipelines, though Aldo noted this was an informal, non-representative poll of the room.
Aldo argued nature has structural advantages over renewables as an asset class: it isn't dependent on a concentrated global supply chain (unlike, for instance, solar panel manufacturing), it combines global scale with genuine local engagement and community benefit, and natural resources are more evenly distributed geographically than energy resources.
