As part of Work Package 2.2 of the FARM-NC project, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a range of stakeholders to explore perspectives on natural capital assessment, incentives, and implementation challenges. In total, 30 interviews were completed, providing qualitative insight into how policy, practice, and economic realities intersect at farm and industry level.
Semi-structured interviews were chosen to balance consistency across participants with the flexibility to explore context-specific experiences. This approach allowed recurring themes to emerge while also capturing nuanced concerns that are often missed by more rigid survey instruments.
The interviews focused on perceived barriers and enablers to adopting natural capital frameworks, with particular attention to farmer engagement, incentive structures, and the feasibility of standardised assessment approaches.
A consistent message across interviews was the importance of securing buy-in from farmers and land managers. Participants highlighted that policy instruments developed without meaningful engagement risk creating political and social tension, potentially undermining environmental objectives rather than supporting them.
One interviewee noted that even well-intentioned climate or environmental policies can become counterproductive if they are perceived as externally imposed or misaligned with on-the-ground realities. This underscores the need for natural capital approaches that are not only technically robust, but socially and institutionally grounded.
Interviewees also pointed to growing engagement from companies around sustainability, driven in part by recognised efficiency gains and cost savings. Rather than viewing sustainability solely as a regulatory burden, some stakeholders framed it as a mechanism for reducing inefficiencies and managing long-term risk.
This perspective highlights a potential alignment between environmental objectives and economic incentives, but also raises questions about how such motivations translate into measurable, comparable natural capital outcomes across different sectors.
A recurring concern related to the standardisation of ecosystem and natural capital assessments. Participants emphasised the difficulty of developing metrics that are sufficiently flexible to account for diverse habitats, while remaining consistent enough to underpin reward or incentive systems.
This tension between ecological specificity and policy scalability was identified as a critical challenge. Interviewees questioned how heterogeneous landscapes could be fairly assessed within uniform frameworks, particularly when financial incentives or compliance mechanisms are attached.
Insights from WP2.2 directly inform the wider FARM-NC methodology. The interviews reinforce the need for approaches that combine robust biophysical assessment with participatory design, ensuring that indicators and accounting frameworks are both scientifically defensible and practically implementable.
These findings also provide important context for subsequent spatial analysis and modelling, helping to frame how indicators may be interpreted, communicated, and ultimately used within decision-making and policy environments.
The qualitative insights from these interviews will be synthesised alongside spatial, field-based, and systems modelling outputs. Together, these strands support the development of natural capital approaches that acknowledge complexity, avoid one-size-fits-all solutions, and prioritise credibility with those expected to implement change on the ground.