How Dr. Rich Stockdale Of Oxygen Conservation Is Helping to Promote Sustainability and Climate Justice

“Data wins arguments, but stories win hearts — so share both.”

According to the University of Colorado, “Those who are most affected and have the fewest resources to adapt to climate change are also the least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions — both globally and within the United States.” Promoting climate justice is an incredibly important environmental responsibility that is slowly becoming more and more recognized. In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who are helping to promote sustainability and climate justice. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Rich Stockdale.

Dr. Rich Stockdale is the CEO of Oxygen Conservation, a mission-led business working to scale conservation across the UK by restoring natural processes, unlocking investment in natural capital, and delivering positive environmental and social impact. With a background in data science, elite sport, the Environment Agency, and venture-backed startups, Rich combines strategic thinking with operational intensity to challenge the status quo in conservation. He is the author of Scaling Conservation and hosts the ‘Shoot Room Sessions’ podcast to inspire new narratives in nature restoration.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?

I grew up in the North of England, where we didn’t have a lot of money and the landscape was more grey than green. My childhood was challenging, defined by low expectations and the kind of tough love that didn’t leave room for ambition or expression. I was the first in my family to finish school, let alone go to university. One bright light in those early years was kayaking: it gave me access to some of the UK’s most remote and beautiful environments and sparked a lifelong connection with wild places. That early exposure to nature helped shape the person I became. I shared this story on our 100th podcast episode, reflecting on how growing up in an environment that discouraged ambition has driven me to build something radically different.

Everyone has a cataclysmic moment or marker in their life which propels them to take certain actions, a “why”. What is your why?

It’s not one single why — it’s a series of challenges, opportunities, and experiences that have led me to discover my overall purpose. From a difficult childhood to exposure to wild places through kayaking, from playing elite sport to leading businesses, each chapter added a piece to the puzzle. That purpose is best described as delivering a positive environmental and social impact. I believe passionately that conservation can scale, move fast, and be profitable without compromising values. The mission is impact; profit is the product.

You are currently leading an organization that is making a difference for our planet. Can you tell us a bit about what you and your organization are trying to change?

We’re trying to drag conservation out of the dusty corners of charity work and into the dynamic world of high-performance business. We are one of the world’s first natural capital asset managers and developers. At Oxygen Conservation, we acquire land across the UK and restore natural processes at scale, creating connected ecosystems that are good for nature, people, and profit. We’re building the natural capital economy in real time. Our goal is simple but ambitious: Scale Conservation. That means delivering environmental and social impact, generating carbon credits and biodiversity units, and creating green jobs and thriving communities along the way.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?

We once turned down a £250 million investment. That kind of offer can stop most businesses in their tracks. But the terms would have changed who we are, making us less agile, less different, less us. So, we walked away. That moment was a defining one for us. It proved we were serious about our principles and showed the team, and the world, that we’re here to build something transformative, not just transactional.

None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?

Absolutely. I’ve been incredibly lucky to be surrounded by brilliant, generous people. Dr Mark Dixon and Oxygen House offered me the opportunity of a lifetime. Our Board, including our Chairman, Benny Higgins and NED Adam Franks, teaches me a great deal. My wife and children remind me daily of who I am and why I started. And our team at Oxygen Conservation — they’re incredible and I adore working with each and every one of them. We hire for the ceiling, not the floor, so I’m surrounded by people who will one day lead this movement far beyond anything I could imagine. And of course, the Shoot Room Sessions podcast is full of moments of learning and inspiration from the extraordinary people across the Natural Capital Sector.

Thank you for that. Let’s now move to the central part of our discussion. Let’s start with a basic definition of terms so that everyone is on the same page. What does climate justice mean to you? How do we operationalize it?

Climate justice means acknowledging that those least responsible for the climate crisis are often those most affected by it. For us, operationalising climate justice starts with creating a market that makes nature valued and investable. At Oxygen Conservation, we’re working to make it more profitable to restore and protect the environment than to destroy it. That means building the infrastructure, data, and trust required to attract investment into natural capital and ensuring that communities share in the benefits. This includes opening our estates to public access, hiring locally, providing homes in rural communities, and creating access to nature for everyone.

Science is telling us that we have 7–10 years to make critical decisions about climate change. What are three things you or your organization are doing to help?

1. We restore large-scale landscapes, bringing back biodiversity, improving water quality, and locking up carbon.
2. We have created market-leading, premium carbon credits with full transparency, reinvesting the proceeds into further conservation and have recently announced a partnership with UK law firm Burges Salmon, where they will invest £1 million for up to 8,000 of these credits at £125 per tonne.
3. We open our estates, provide improved access and support green job creation to deliver social as well as environmental returns.
4. If I can cheekily add one more, we publish extensively to share our experiences, achievements, and mistakes. Through our books, articles and the Shoot Room Sessions podcast, we can help scale the entire sector.

Are there three things the community, society, or politicians can do to help you in your mission?

1. Recognise that we are all a society, and many of us have the ability to redirect our pensions and insist that they do good for people and wildlife. Demand better from your investments.
2. The government isn’t coming to save us — we need a smaller, more effective civil service and fewer, but more meaningful, regulations that are actually enforced. Most critically, we need to enshrine the principle that the polluter pays and the protector profits.
3. Stop demonising profit in conservation. Without viable business models, nothing scales. We need communities to work with private landowners to deliver environmental improvement — supporting rather than opposing developments — and as a result, benefiting meaningfully from these projects.

How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?

Nature is the ultimate undervalued asset. For most businesses, being more sustainable actually means being more efficient — reducing waste, using fewer resources, and making smarter, more cost-effective choices. For example, at Wood Advent Farm, where we partner with the existing farming family, by becoming organic and removing pesticides and chemicals, we have made the farming operation profitable for the first time in many years.

At a larger institutional financial scale, it means investing in high-quality carbon sequestration, nature creation, and protection projects. These will become some of the most lucrative natural assets in the very near future. At Leighon Estate, for example, our restoration of temperate rainforest is generating high-quality carbon income from our partnership with Burges Salmon, biodiversity uplift, and attracting some of the highest prices ever paid for voluntary carbon credits from nature. Sustainability isn’t a cost. It’s a growth strategy — and increasingly, a competitive one.

This is the signature question we ask in most of our interviews. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started promoting sustainability and climate justice” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1. You will be criticised no matter what you do — so do it anyway.
2. It’s not about being liked, it’s about doing the right thing, even when it’s unpopular.
3. Data wins arguments, but stories win hearts — so share both.
4. Conservation is a team sport — surround yourself with the best. The talent coming into this sector is even more inspiring than I thought possible.
5. Everything Compounds — Work relentlessly to make marginal gains every single day. Progress can feel invisible in the moment, but over weeks, months, and years, those tiny improvements add up to extraordinary outcomes.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂

Peter Thiel. Because he understands the intersection of innovation, contrarian thinking, and long-term investment. I’d love to talk with him about how we can apply those principles to the natural world — how to build scalable, profitable systems that regenerate rather than extract from nature, and what it would take to truly mainstream investment into environmental assets.

How can our readers continue to follow your work online?

Follow Oxygen Conservation on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. Listen to our podcast, ‘Shoot Room Sessions,’ and subscribe to our newsletter. And of course, read Scaling Conservation — The Business of Restoring the Wild if you want the full behind-the-scenes tour

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!

How Dr. Rich Stockdale Of Oxygen Conservation Is Helping to Promote Sustainability and Climate… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.