About
Built in the Humber. Designed for national scale.
Humber Natural Capital was created to solve a practical problem. Environmental obligations are increasing — but the systems to manage them remain fragmented.
Why we exist
Biodiversity Net Gain is mandatory. Marine Net Gain is coming. Planning conditions carry decades of obligation. Habitat monitoring runs for 30 years. Ecological surveys need to feed into evidence-grade compliance records.
Most of this is still being managed through spreadsheets, email chains and disconnected consultants. The result is risk — for developers, for investors, for landowners, and ultimately for the natural environment itself.
We believe better environmental delivery requires better systems. Not apps that add noise — infrastructure that creates accountability, trust, and long-term ecological value.
"We're building the operational layer that connects land, regulation, investment and restoration."
Why the Humber Region
We're not based here by accident. The Humber Region is where the environmental challenges that BNG and MNG are designed to address are most immediate and most complex.
20%
of England's surface water drains through the Humber Estuary
90%
of Hull sits below the high tide line
Fastest
eroding coastline in Europe — Holderness, East Yorkshire
Largest
renewable energy port cluster in the UK — and growing
This is not a generic compliance platform that could have been built anywhere. It was built where the problem is most real — and designed to scale from here.
What we're building
Humber Natural Capital is building the operational infrastructure for environmental obligation management — from terrestrial BNG to Marine Net Gain, from planning consent to 30-year stewardship monitoring.
We're also building the market infrastructure: a verified marketplace for biodiversity units, and a vetted network of ecological delivery partners.
The platform is designed to expand as the sector matures — into soil carbon, IoT-enabled habitat monitoring, and other nature-based solutions as measurement frameworks and regulatory requirements develop.
The team
Built by people who have spent careers at the sharp end of infrastructure, environment, and delivery.
Steve Parkinson
Director
Steve is an experienced project lead and founder with over 30 years in engineering, construction, and renewable infrastructure. After serving in the Royal Marines, he led commercial developments across the UK including flagship retail fit-outs and large-scale new builds. Co-founder of both the Yorkshire Energy Park and Humber Natural Capital, he shapes HNC's vision, partnerships, and trust architecture — bringing sharp commercial judgement and a hands-on approach to building scalable impact ventures.
Dr Andrew Steel
Director
A former military non-commissioned officer and UN Advisor with 20+ years' experience operating at board level in commercial and environmental organisations. Andrew brings extensive experience delivering sustainability projects at scale. He holds an Honorary Doctor of Science awarded by the University of Hull in recognition of his work in the environmental sector.
Dr Alan Raw
Chief Technology Officer
Alan is Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Humber Natural Capital, where he oversees platform architecture, verification workflows, and data integrity strategies for nature recovery projects. With a career spanning Earth observation, environmental governance, and community sustainability practice, he specialises in systems that translate complex ecological data into defensible, auditable compliance records. He co-founded the award-winning space technology company Pan Galactic, and during 21 years at the BBC co-founded BBC Introducing. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Schumacher Institute of Sustainable Systems, Director of the Association of Sustainability Practitioners, and Honorary Doctor of the University of Hull, Alan brings both technical rigour and deep environmental conviction to everything HNC builds.
Advisors
Roger Lown
Advisor
Senior real estate strategist with decades of experience structuring major land transactions and developments. Provides expertise in land acquisition, deal structuring, and maximising long-term project value.
Andrew Reynolds
Advisor
Infrastructure project director with a track record of delivering nationally significant developments, including The Scalpel. Advises on large-scale delivery, engineering, and stakeholder management.
Want to know more?
We're speaking with developers, investors, ecologists and landowners who want to understand how HNC can work for them.
Get in Touch