Author: Henry Leveson-Gower
A new project in the River Almond catchment is asking a simple but important question: if nature-based solutions can reduce flood risk, improve water quality and protect infrastructure at the same time, why do we still struggle to organise funding for them? This blog explains the logic behind the Almond Buyers Club and why it matters beyond one Scottish catchment.
A crowded catchment with shared problems
The River Almond is a good place to ask difficult questions. It is not a remote catchment with a single dominant land use or one obvious pressure. It is a compact version of many of the challenges now facing rivers across Scotland.
In the Almond catchment, flood risk affects communities, businesses and infrastructure. Wastewater systems are under strain. Water quality is shaped by a mix of sediment, nutrients, urban runoff and legacy pollution. Roads, rail, power assets and development sites all intersect with the river system and its floodplain. The risks are shared, but the systems for dealing with them are still mostly separate.
That matters because many nature-based solutions do not produce just one benefit. Wetland creation, woodland planting, soil management, peatland restoration and urban blue-green infrastructure can slow flows, reduce pollution, stabilise land and improve resilience at the same time. But while the benefits may be multiple, the funding usually is not. One organisation pays, another benefits, and a third controls part of the system. The result is hesitation, fragmentation and under-investment.
The problem is not only technical
A lot of discussion about nature-based solutions still assumes the main challenge is proving that they work. Evidence does matter, but that is only part of the issue. In many cases the harder question is institutional: who pays, why would they pay, and what evidence do they need before they do?
That is the starting point of the Almond Buyers Club project. Rather than beginning with supply, it starts with demand. It asks which water outcomes in the Almond are potentially fundable, who the likely funders are, what motivates them, what constrains them, and what kinds of governance and cost-sharing arrangements might make joint action possible.
This is important because current systems still push organisations towards isolated decision-making. Each body tends to build its own business case, use its own appraisal methods and focus on its own duties. Co-benefits to others are often acknowledged in principle but rarely turned into shared budgets or long-term commitments. There is still no settled mechanism for translating joint risk reduction into demand for nature-based water outcomes.
What a buyers’ club could actually do
The phrase “buyers’ club” can sound abstract, but the underlying idea is straightforward. If several organisations benefit from the same upstream intervention, there should be a way to identify that shared value, agree how it is measured, and create some fair basis for paying for it.
In practice, the project will look at four linked issues. First, it will identify priority water outcomes in the Almond and assess which look near-term fundable. Second, it will map potential funders, from Scottish Water and local authorities to infrastructure operators and other organisations with a stake in resilience. Third, it will develop draft metrics and assurance approaches for selected outcomes, so buyers can judge whether they are being offered something credible. Fourth, it will explore governance options and cost-sharing models, including what is politically and institutionally realistic.
That does not mean pretending every problem can be solved simply. Quite the reverse. Part of the point is to identify where the barriers really are: procurement rules, regulatory uncertainty, accounting categories, fragmented responsibilities and different tolerances for risk. The project is not trying to force the Almond into an over-simple model. It is trying to find out what model might actually work.
Why the Almond matters beyond the Almond
The wider significance of the project is that the Almond may become a proving ground for a more serious conversation about catchment-scale resilience. It is already attracting attention because it combines urban growth, infrastructure exposure, pollution pressures and opportunities for nature-based intervention within one relatively short river system.
There is also a strong practical base for the work. Promoting Economic Pluralism is leading the project, with Forth Rivers Trust bringing catchment knowledge, technical expertise and stakeholder relationships. Scottish Water, the James Hutton Institute, West Lothian and Edinburgh City Councils, and Rettie & Co are supporting it in kind. The intention is not to produce another glossy concept note. It is to create reusable tools, pilot concepts and a clearer route to action.
If successful, the project should leave behind more than a set of reports. It should help show whether shared catchment outcomes can be turned into fundable propositions over the long-term without losing sight of public purpose, community legitimacy and the messy realities of governance. That is the real test: not whether people say they support nature-based solutions in principle, but whether institutions can organise themselves to pay for them in ways that are credible, fair and durable.
