UK-headquartered conservation company Environment Bank has engaged with numerous managers of sites globally that could become its next biodiversity credit venture, an executive has said.
The firm is looking to create groups of potential buyers of biodiversity credits, who will determine the location of the next site, said Rob Wreglesworth, associate ecologist and innovation lead at Environment Bank.
“We have already spoken to potential delivery partners around the world who’ve got projects, and we’re actually quite overwhelmed with potential projects,” Wreglesworth told Carbon Pulse.
The company began marketing biodiversity credits from a 1,200-acre pilot site in Norfolk, England in October, but has yet to make its first sale.
“We knew it would be a slower process because it is such a nascent market. This is going to be very much individual pitches. We’ve had some really exciting conversations with potential buyers and fingers crossed we’ll start making sales early this year,” he said.
Environment Bank is marketing the Norfolk biodiversity credits through its “nature shares” mechanism, in which corporates can purchase a percentage of the entire project that will equate to a share of the site’s total credits when they are generated and verified.
The conservation company hopes the model can apply to future initiatives, Wreglesworth said. Potential buyers are saying they want biodiversity credits in countries affected by their operations.
Although Environment Bank is talking to potential buyers for the Norfolk initiative including food companies with farms in the UK, most biodiversity credit demand is likely to come from firms with supply chains in developing countries, he said.
“There’s a little bit of nervousness, and that’s why we wanted to get it absolutely nailed down with how it’s all going to work in the UK first, and then start looking at designing it overseas.”
However, the Environment Bank also foresees other schemes in the UK and in Europe.
To avoid ending up with projects being stranded without demand, the company is cautiously eyeing up different projects to ensure they make sense for buyers.
“There are amazing projects [possible] everywhere. We’ve got to understand what this emerging market requires and be really open, because we understand that a lot of companies are only just starting their journey into understanding their nature impacts and dependencies.”
“We also don’t want to wait 10-20 years, while companies really get to the minute detail of where those impacts are.”
Environment Bank could gather together several companies in the same sector, with operations in the same country, to collaborate on one biodiversity credit project.
“There’s a movement towards more of a collaborative approach, particularly in tackling these big, existential problems that entire industries face.”
By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com
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