The French parliament has voted through a green industrial law that is expected to open up ecosystem restoration projects in the country to biodiversity and carbon credit stacking.
The so-called ‘Green Industry’ bill passed through the country’s national assembly on July 22, and includes a reform to existing biodiversity policy that could lead to a rise in biodiversity crediting.
Paris now wants to incentivise the establishment of large natural restoration and renaturation sites, which it calls SNRRs, and streamline the process of compensating for potential damage to nature, as well as actively restore and protect biodiversity via public and private finance.
This reform will allow project owners to more efficiently compensate in advance for their impact, creating an appropriate legislative framework for the development of biodiversity restoration carried out for voluntary commitments by companies and communities, and facilitating the site approval procedure, the government said in a note earlier in the legislative process.
With an accompanying amendment to the existing ‘low-carbon label’ these sites can now be expanded, with carbon and biodiversity credit stacking possible, according to observers.
The law will make it possible to create larger offset sites since they can be increased through voluntary action, which will make it possible to find green corridors, said Marianne Louradour, president of green firm CDC Biodiversite, speaking in French to website Actu Environnement.
CDC Biodiversite is still the only firm with an approved nature compensation site approved by the French state, Actu reported.
One aim with the new law is to remove the technical hurdles and streamline nature positive and climate-friendly projects at the same sites, which could now open the country up to the widespread development of certificates for biodiversity protection.
“In France, after pioneers like CDC Biodiversite, firms like Le Printemps des Terres, Biotope, Factor Eleven, and … aDryada are now designing voluntary biodiversity certificate models,” wrote Fabien Quetier, head of landscapes at Rewilding Europe, on LinkedIn.
“This is aligned with a new law voted on July 22 that has just opened the country’s own biodiversity banks to the voluntary market.”
“They’re now also open to selling carbon credits under the government’s scheme. It’s stacking, not bundling, but in the real world, you can’t and shouldn’t separate the biodiversity and carbon impacts,” he added.
Experts recently outlined that the stacking or bundling of outcomes with carbon would be the next big conversation for biodiversity crediting in Carbon Pulse analysis.
GREEN INDUSTRIALISATION
The wider purpose of the French law is to boost green industrial growth, with the government citing it as a response to the US Inflation Reduction Act, which came into force last year.
“[We want to] make France the leader of green industry in Europe”, said the minister of economy and finance, Bruno Le Maire, in French, at the passing of the law.
The cited four core aims of the law are to:
- Facilitate and accelerate the establishment of industrial sites in France;
- Finance green industry by mobilising public and private funds by supporting green technologies;
- Promote virtuous enterprises in all state interventions;
- Train for jobs in the green industry.
The French government estimates it will raise €23 billion by 2030 and reduce 41 MtCO2e.
French industry represents 18% of annual national GHGs, the government stated.
By Roy Manuell – roy@carbon-pulse.com
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