Spotlight on Nature-based Enterprise: green account

Since 1976, Germany's Impact Mitigation Regulation has required developers who consume green space to restore affected ecosystems. Today, that regulation underpins a market that transacts an estimated €1–2 bn annually, with consulting, planning and legal services and national land restoration initiatives forming a €5–10 bn sector around it. Yet the process of organising restoration, from finding the land, securing the lease, designing the project, to navigating permitting, has remained slow and fragmented. green account, headquartered in Bielefeld with an additional office in Berlin, has set out to change that.

Born from the idea of turning restoration into a business case, initially through biodiversity-rich flower patches, green account has grown into the leading broker and planning office operating at a national scale in Germany's nature restoration sector. A co-founder's background as a farmer and landowner who has restored large parts of his own agricultural land gives the company strong regional roots and a grounded identity. The mission is threefold:

• to demonstrate that Germany's no-net-loss policy can be strengthened through innovation rather than weakened by deregulation;
• to service national demand for nature offsets created by the energy transition; 
• to make it simple for landowners to participate and earn from ecosystem restoration.

green account operates as a B2B and B2G service company on a commission fee model (from 10%), covering area identification, lease contracting, restoration planning and permitting. A proprietary data layer consisting of landowner-uploaded area data combined with public landscape datasets powers the platform, increasingly enhanced by AI. The long-term goal is to become Germany's largest nature restoration platform, with potential international expansion where policy allows.

Looking ahead, the next growth phase centres on automation: AI-assisted area assessment will improve supply quality, while automated planning documents cut permitting time and save up to 70% of planner effort. Onboarding major infrastructure developers onto the platform adds recurring revenue alongside transaction fees. At scale, green account is positioned as the gateway for the billions needed to meet Germany's restoration targets — and a natural pathway toward institutional capital and cross-border expansion.