EnTrade Nature Markets Platform
Turning Environmental Commitments into Action
Summary
Radical IT, Arup and EnTrade delivered a world-first digital platform using Nobel Prize-winning economic theory – cutting public costs by nearly a third while enabling developers and landowners to take meaningful environmental action, fast.
At a glance
- Client: EnTrade
- Partners: Arup (environmental strategy), Radical IT (platform delivery)
- Sector: Environment / Public Infrastructure
- Project Timeline: 9 months to MVP (3 x 90-day agile iterations)
- Delivery: Fully functioning digital marketplace for environmental services
What Makes This Different
This was the first platform to apply Nobel Prize-winning economic theory to environmental markets. It ensures that both sides (developers and landowners) get a fair deal, with surplus shared and pricing balanced.
This is a fully functioning marketplace, built not only to meet regulatory requirements, but to deliver tangible environmental improvements and ensure fairness in market matching.
The results speak volumes:
The platform has already demonstrated the potential for significant savings and greater efficiency in sample assessments with major authorities, validating its use at scale.
As costs continue to rise across the public sector, scaled across the UK, the potential financial and environmental impact is enormous.
EnTrade
EnTrade are pioneers in designing and operating environmental markets in the UK. Originally developed within Wessex Water and now operating independently, the EnTrade team brings deep expertise in catchment management, environmental policy, and market mechanisms. They work at the cutting edge of natural capital innovation – making it possible for infrastructure projects to meet regulatory obligations while delivering measurable improvements for biodiversity, water quality, and climate resilience.
Their goal is to create trusted markets that convert complex environmental science into practical, investable action. This platform is a major step toward that goal.
The Brief
The project set out to create a new kind of marketplace to enable developers to meet planning requirements by investing directly in nature, supporting real projects like wetland creation and biodiversity restoration. In parallel, for landowners, it opened a new income stream for doing the right thing environmentally, delivering real, measurable improvements.
EnTrade brought the vision and market rules. Arup brought environmental and strategic expertise, as well as investment and data strategy. Radical IT designed, built and delivered the technology that made it all work. Turning the concept into a fully working digital platform, used by local authorities, developers and landholders alike.
Our Role
- Defined and built the underlying credit and project model
- Developed the market matching engine
- Delivered public-facing tools for bidding and project participation
- Conducted comprehensive security, compliance and accessibility testing
- Led team-wide agile training to embed delivery confidence across all three organisations
What the Platform Achieved
- Live MVP delivered in 9 months
- Used in real-world market rounds and planning contexts
- Helped developers meet environmental obligations more efficiently
- Enabled landowners to access funding for delivering nature-based improvements
Radical IT led the technical side of the project from end to end.
Market Round Outcomes
Platform Testing with Major UK Authority (Sample Data):
- The platform was tested with real planning data from a major public body to assess suitability for large-scale drainage credit allocation
- Results highlighted strong potential for efficiency and value, with very positive internal feedback
- The exercise confirmed the platform's readiness for broader public sector application.
Real Trades: 4 Live Market Rounds (Somerset & Bristol Avon):
- Bonus and discount stats show that both buyers and suppliers benefitted
- Buyers consistently paid less than their maximum bids
- Suppliers received more than their minimum offer; supporting fair, incentivised participation
- The mechanism's balance ensures that savings don't come at the supplier's expense, driving long-term trust in the system
UK Context: How Rare is This?
In 2022/23, UK public sector biodiversity funding totalled over £876 million, rising 13% year-on-year. Nature-oriented markets, including biodiversity and nutrient trading, are officially recognised as key to unlocking future investment. Academic studies highlight substantial economic potential: social and environmental markets could fill funding gaps of hundreds of billions globally. Nature‑based solutions are increasingly viewed as both public‑good and strategic investment.
This means EnTrade, with Radical IT and Arup, has delivered one of the few real-world, high‑impact examples of a functioning environmental market in the UK, shifting billions in theoretical funding toward tangible budgets for nature.
Client Feedback
"Thank you Simon Edwards and Vikki Williams for your incredible work in leading the build of our digital solutions. The EnTrade team has learned heaps from working with you and your teams. As you say, digital underpins our market integrity so having the platform live is a massive step forward for us."
"Simon's team at Radical IT thrives on delivering innovative, practical solutions for complex challenges... The EnTrade digital platform is a perfect example, expertly navigating the many rules and regulations underpinning complex environmental markets while delivering a world-class platform that balances fairness and transparency."
Why This Partnership?
This collaboration brought together the right blend of policy leadership, emerging science in nature recovery, and deep digital delivery expertise. Between EnTrade, Arup and Radical IT, the team developed a scalable, trusted mechanism capable of turning environmental ambition into practical, investable action.