The largest offshore wind developer in the world on Thursday called on all renewable energy developers to set net-positive biodiversity targets when developing projects.

In a whitepaper, the Danish energy company outlined how biodiversity and climate change are interconnected, as it issued a call to action to policymakers, the energy industry, and environmental NGOs to recognise the link and ramp up their efforts in restoring and protecting natural habitats.

Orsted aims to deliver a net-positive biodiversity impact on all renewable energy projects commissioned from 2030.

“The science is clear: we cannot afford to limit progress on climate or nature. And we cannot solve one crisis without solving the other,” Orsted CEO Mads Nipper said.

“That’s why we’re calling for policymakers to take action to unlock large-scale investment in biodiversity-positive renewable energy,” he added.

In order to meet its net zero carbon emissions target by 2050, the world must add an average of 1,000 GW of renewable power capacity annually until 2030. In 2023, global capacity of renewables is set to increase by 107 GW, the largest absolute increase ever, to more than 440 GW, according to the IEA.

This means renewables will be competing for available land space with human activity and biodiversity in years to come, according to the Danish firm.

Orsted proposed moving beyond reducing environmental impact and towards direct and active enhancement of biodiversity.

To achieve these aims, Orsted is investing in pilot projects to test and develop measures to deliver net-positive biodiversity impact at scale, both inside and outside its renewable energy projects.

In the US, the company is restoring tallgrass prairies in Kansas, while in Ireland, it is testing new technology for birdlife monitoring.

The company has some projects restoring seascapes in the Humber Estuary in the UK and it is testing the potential of seaweed farming to boost biodiversity, among a number of other activities.

Most of the projects are new and in their pilot phase, so it will not be possible to assess their effectiveness for some time, Orsted said.

In the whitepaper, Orsted said it is also testing an impact measurement framework that can be applied to assess the net-positive biodiversity impact across projects.

Developing impact measurement frameworks for biodiversity is difficult because of the intrinsic nature of biodiversity, which is local and diverse and differs in every natural habitat.

According to Emma Hospes, head of strategic environment and permitting at Orsted, a one size fits all approach would not work universally, though there are key approaches that can be transferred and compared across ecosystems.

Orsted also wants to raise finance to further invest in this work offshore and become the world’s first energy company to issue a blue bond.

Establishing partnerships with leading academic institutions and environmental NGOs will also be key to create solutions, the report stated.

To facilitate this, Orsted said policymakers should enable a biodiversity positive energy transition, moving away from a race to the bottom on price when delivering already cost-competitive technologies will be necessary.

Auction prices to develop offshore wind have been too low for developers recently, the company said, leading developers to pull out of projects or face the potential of financial losses in the future.

As a means to address this, Orsted is calling for biodiversity to become a more central part of the selection process in offshore wind auctions.

By Rebecca Gualandi – rebecca@carbon-pulse.com

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