The UK’s first voluntary biodiversity credit scheme is set to expand over the next two months, with 10 projects ready to be added to the newly-established framework, Carbon Pulse has learned.

Last month, London-headquartered nature tech company Earthly launched the scheme, which uses a methodology that builds on the UK’s biodiversity net gain (BNG) metric, with a national park in Southern England becoming the first site in the country to adopt it.

The company is now gearing up for scaling. “We’ve started with the South Downs National Park, but we’re going to have at least 10 other projects spread across different locations in the UK within the next two months,” Oliver Bolton, CEO and co-founder of Earthly, told Carbon Pulse on the sidelines of the Hack Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“First, we want to make sure we don’t just have these projects up and running. We want them to get a good flow of support.”

The crediting scheme, the first of its kind in the UK, leverages the methodology developed by the country’s Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) for the BNG policy.

Under Earthly’s framework, BNG units are broken down into smaller areas of nine square metres, which must be conserved for 30 years.

DEFRA METHODOLOGY

“We took the Defra-approved methodology to build trust and created a voluntary version of it,” said Bolton.

“While Defra is the base, we’ve added extra layers through deploying our geospatial analysis focused on vegetation health changes and biomass changes,” he added, saying that the monitoring framework will soon incorporate environmental DNA (eDNA) and bioacoustic technologies.

With last month’s partnership with the South Downs National Park, around 500 hectares of land on farms and country estates in Hampshire and Sussex have been identified and designed for biodiversity restoration programmes.

Eligible activities within Earthly’s crediting scheme include the removal of invasive species, water flow improvement, sustainable land management, tree planting, and the reintroduction of species.

“Companies can support a local project and pick those near their offices or where their customers are based, but they can also choose based on the kind of habitats that fit with what they’re doing,” said Bolton.

While Earthly has initially focused on small areas, Bolton said the company is looking to integrate bigger projects into its pipeline over the next few months.

“We want to talk to big landowners as well,” he said. “For example, we have one project that requires £10 million for wetland creation on a big landscape.”

PRICING

Payments for the credits are made upfront, and while the price will vary depending on the habitat value, the company intends to make the scheme accessible also to small businesses, Bolton said.

“With the compliance market, the units are sold at an average price of over £30,000, it’s an expensive entry point to many businesses, while with our scheme, companies can contribute £1,000 or £5,000.”

“Also, the BNG legislation focuses on specific sectors, whereas lots of other businesses want to make financial contributions and commitments to biodiversity conservation.”

Under the BNG rules, which came into force on Feb. 12, development projects in England need to achieve a net biodiversity improvement of at least 10%.

When on-site enhancements are insufficient to meet the target, developers can generate off-site gains elsewhere or purchase them in a new market.

The BNG legislation has been heralded as pioneering, while facing numerous issues over the last year, including claims it could incentivise building in nature recovery areas, pose serious risks to ecology, and lacks a strong market infrastructure.

By Sergio Colombo in Lausanne – sergio@carbon-pulse.com

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