A New Zealand carbon forestry service company says it has already developed a biodiversity credit financing instrument that could be used in the government’s proposed market-based scheme to restore nature.
Ekos said on Monday that it had developed and trialled a Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) Programme that would support any UN SDG, including, but not limited to, biodiversity.
Ekos CEO Sean Weaver said his company developed a biodiversity market demonstration activity and transacted its first biodiversity credits under this system in mid-2022, and was using the lessons from that first project to refine the programme for general launch.
“We actually transacted our first biodiversity credits back in 2014, but have only got round to developing a full system more recently,” he said.
“Our biodiversity credits are not offsets of any kind. They are a nature-positive initiative for people and organisations who want to cause good with their purchase of biodiversity credits.”
The first transaction of SDUs last year was by conservation site Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari, who sold the credits to Profile Group Limited, which helped fund the conservation management of 83 hectares at the sanctuary for the 2022 financial year.
The number of units that were generated, and the price they were sold for was not disclosed.
Weaver went on to say that the scheme’s target market included corporate social responsibility buyers, financial institutions, philanthropists, and those who want to sell biodiversity-enriched value chain.
“Imagine a future when every product or service in the economy is biodiversity enriched by embedding a slice of biodiversity conservation into each,” he said.
Ekos noted that biodiversity credits are being promoted by the New Zealand government as one option for financing much-needed biodiversity conservation.
Last week, the government launched a consultation on establishing a domestic voluntary biodiversity credit scheme in a bid to reverse natural ecosystem decline.
The discussion paper released alongside the consultation focussed on how such a market would function, its interaction with other policies, and what role the government should play.
Ekos said the key to consumer trust in such a scheme would be the transparency and integrity of the system that produced the credits.
It said its SDU programme was based on a standard, an activity methodology, a financial integrity methodology, a unit registry, and an independent validation and verification protocol.
“We built a unit registry using blockchain technology with tech partners in Denmark, and this registry forms the foundation of integrity for our programme,” Weaver said.
Weaver is a founding member of the international Biodiversity Credits Alliance, and is helping to define the integrity safeguard foundations for biodiversity markets globally, according to Ekos.
“Integrity safeguards will need to form the bedrock of the emerging biodiversity market if it is going to succeed at any realistic scale. Without this, buyers, investors, and the wider community will not trust it,” Weaver said.
The lack of integrity safeguards has seen legislation to establish a government-backed biodiversity market in neighbouring Australia stall out.
The legislation’s benching followed the government failing to heed warnings from multiple parties concerned with proposed market’s loose standards and lack of core focus.
By Mark Tilly – mark@carbon-pulse.com
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