About the Natural Capital Partnerships team

Community Land Scotland is recruiting a Manager to set up and manage our Natural Capital Partnerships project.

Our Natural Capital Partnerships team is part of a new project created to work across Scotland’s community, private and public sectors, supporting the transition to net zero. As investment increases in nature-based solutions to address the climate and biodiversity crises, it is important that the opportunity to engage communities appropriately is embraced, to secure greater community benefits from natural capital developments, support community wealth building objectives and reduce the risk of communities being marginalised.

The Scottish Government’s recently published Natural Capital Market Framework sets out its ambition to attract greater responsible private investment into values-led, high-integrity natural capital projects, by promoting its Principles for Responsible Investment in Natural Capital. These principles highlight the need for shared public, private, and community benefits.

However, challenges like language, power dynamics, and expertise can hinder collaboration between communities, investors and developers. This new team will bridge these gaps, developing partnerships that will support delivery of the SG Natural Capital Market Framework and ensure meaningful community involvement and alignment with the Just Transition Commission’s 2021 report, which advocates for fair land management and wider benefit distribution in the shift to net zero.

The posts and the project are funded with the support of Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Foundation Scotland, Scottish Forestry, South of Scotland Enterprise and others.

Other project supporters include the Scottish Land Commission, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Cairngorm National Park Authority and Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park.

The team will be supported by a Partnership Board comprising a range of organisations but will sit within Community Land Scotland.

About Community Land Scotland

Community Land Scotland (CLS) was established in 2010 to provide a collective national voice for community landowners in Scotland. We have over 130 member organisations across Scotland, ranging from large crofting estates in the Western Isles to inner city community hubs. Collectively, members own and manage over 550,000 acres of land and a wide range of buildings in rural and urban areas.

Community Land Scotland is a small organisation with a big impact. It works to: be a collective voice for community owners; encourage more community ownership of land and buildings; facilitate mutual support and knowledge exchange between community landowners and collaborate with other organisations to ensure community landowners get the support they need.

Community ownership has shaped Scottish land reform and played a key role in the Community Empowerment Act. Over 500 community organisations now own land or buildings across rural and urban Scotland. Further information about Community Land Scotland and community ownership can be found at: communitylandscotland.org.uk

Natural Capital Partnerships

The Scottish Government has emphasised that natural capital investment should be “values-led” and “high-integrity,” as outlined in its Principles for Responsible Investment in Natural Capital. These principles highlight the need for shared public, private, and community benefits.

However, there are a range of challenges that can hinder collaboration between communities, landowners, investors, and developers. This new team will bridge these gaps, supporting partnerships to develop that will ensure meaningful community involvement and alignment with the Just Transition Commission’s 2021 report, which advocates for fair land management and wider benefit distribution in the shift to net zero.

The new team will:

• Develop relationships and productive collaboration between local communities, landowners, developers and nature finance investors to deliver socially just natural capital investments across Scotland. It is expected this will lead to individual agreements between landowners, developers and communities to share the benefits of Scotland’s natural capital more equitably.
• Strengthen relationships among funders, stakeholders, community intermediaries, government bodies, landowners, and the nature finance sector to support project development.
• Develop, test and share learning from case studies that seek to increase community benefits and community wealth building outcomes from natural capital developments and nature finance, guided by Scottish Government’s Natural Capital Market Framework and the Scottish Land Commission’s good practice protocol and Guidance on Delivering Community Benefits from Land.
• Cover all forms of natural capital projects, be they land or marine based, be they focused on climate change mitigation, climate change adaption or biodiversity, they will be within the scope of the project. We are looking to appoint team members with an understanding of land and marine natural capital developments, nature finance and community engagement and empowerment

About the role

The role of the Manager will be to lead a small, distributed team across Scotland to support the delivery of the strategy and objectives of the Natural Capital Partnerships Project. The role will require travel around Scotland and some evening and weekend work.

• Lead and support the Natural Capital Partnership team to achieve the agreed strategic and operational objectives
• Line manage and provide guidance and support to team members to deliver their specific objectives
• Lead the delivery of a programme of awareness-raising opportunities and good practice in delivering community benefits from natural capital projects
• Support and guide team members in their collaborative activities and agreements between communities, landowners and those involved in nature finance to deliver meaningful community benefits and support community wealth building through natural capital developments
• Support and guide team members to promote the use of shared governance and asset ownership arrangements where appropriate, to increase community agency in decision making over land use change arising from natural capital developments
• Act as part of the senior management team in Community Land Scotland
• Work with the Community Land Scotland Policy Manager to help inform the development of national policy on community benefits from nature finance and other natural capital policy developmen
• Develop effective relationships with stakeholders to support the delivery of the team’s objectives and increase the impact of the project
• Represent Community Land Scotland and the project at national level meetings and public facing events
• Look for communication opportunities to increase the impact of and reach of the project and representing the project and Community Land Scotland in the media
• Any other tasks as required by Community Land Scotland

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Full details can be found in the job description attached below.