QBE and seven suppliers form UK rewilding consortium

QBE and seven of the firms in its supply chain have joined forces to launch a UK rewilding consortium led by carbon credit intermediary Nature Broking.

The firms – QBE, DWF, Keoghs, Prism Claims Group, Sedgwick, Clyde and Co, FMG and an unnamed salvage dealer – will together form the QBE Buyers Club and fund a 50-year rewilding project at Boothby Wildland in Lincolnshire.

The consortium’s support will aid the carbon-capturing efforts across 18 dedicated acres of the 500 acre site. In total, the wildland hopes to generate 25,000 verified carbon credits over the next 100 years.

The site is home to the West Glen River, which in February of this year became the home of two Eurasian beavers, a species once native in the UK, but which have not lived wild for over 400 years.

Something real

Joanna Lloyd-Davies, international head of sustainability at QBE, said: “The QBE Buyers Club supports all three of our sustainability focus areas – supporting climate resilience and the transition, enabling a resilient workforce and partnering for impact, in this case through our value chain.

“The Buyers Club will improve biodiversity outcomes in nature-depleted areas, prioritising nature recovery whilst generating high-integrity carbon credits.

”It is a first-of-a-kind model that puts our value chain at the heart of our sustainability strategy and gives every partner a direct stake in a piece of land they can visit, watch recover and be proud of.”

Luke Baldwin, chief executive at Nature Broking, added: “The voluntary carbon market works best when buyers are connected to the land they’re funding. They can visit it, see it change and show their stakeholders something real.

”The QBE Buyers Club is exactly that model – a supply chain investing together in a project that is verifiably, tangibly theirs.”