The EU will provide funding for an Italian firm to adapt its existing approach for biodiversity credits, with the company now seeking to take advantage of opportunities emerging from European-wide corporate disclosure rules.
Climate tech company 3Bee has been selected by the European Innovation Council (EIC) to receive grant funding to develop an approach for the “first certified biodiversity credits”.
“The EIC Accelerator will allow us to develop the technology to certify biodiversity protection at the European level, consolidating our oases in up to four European countries,” said Niccolo Calandri, CEO of 3Bee, in a statement.
“3Bee will thus become the first biodiversity protection provider supported by the European Union,” he added.
Under the EIC accelerator, companies receive grant funding up to €2.5 million. A total of 648 companies applied to the competition back in June, which could be provided through grants or equity investment, but only 5% received funding.
3Bee will now look to apply its site-level biodiversity monitoring protocol to 250 sites across Italy, France, Germany, and Spain with the aim of achieving scientific robustness for different climates and geographical areas.
The company’s “Element-E” protocol uses satellite imagery in the “first level” to calculate land use change and pollination abundance. In the “second level”, pollinating insects and other species are detected using bioacoustics and other sensors.
Certification of positive biodiversity impact is then provided by Climate Standard, which has historically supported product-level “climate neutral” product certification.
Currently, the monitoring approach is being used on 2,000 hectares of land across Europe, with more than 10,000 sensors installed.
A number of Italian universities and the European Space Agency were involved in developing its protocol, which now has more than 300 partners, 3Bee said.
The company said its approach responds to the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which requires all large and listed companies to disclose their environmental impacts. The CSRD entered into force in January, with the first reports expected to be published in 2025.
Corporates and site managers will be able to align and regularly monitor site-based impacts for CSRD and “promote reliable offsets”, the company said.
3Bee aims to bring biodiversity credits to market within the next two years.
By Tom Woolnough – tom@carbon-pulse.com
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