A Tokyo-headquartered asset management firm has teamed up with a tech company to create voluntary credits aligned with the Taskforce on Nature-based Financial Disclosure’s reporting framework, focusing on Japan at first but eyeing international expansion later.
Tokio Marine Asset Management and Sustainacraft announced on Thursday their ambition to get involved in the market, beginning with a study on monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) requirements for seaweed projects.
“We will conduct research on additional efforts and [MRV] that are considered necessary for the creation of biodiversity credits, the methodology of which is currently under discussion,” the asset manager said in a statement.
“This will promote decarbonisation efforts through the restoration of seaweed beds on Ishigaki Island, and at the same time it will be possible to monetise the conservation effects on biodiversity, resulting in an increase in the inflow of funds to biodiversity conservation activities.”
Last October, Tokio Marine announced it had partnered with Innoqua to restore seaweed beds near Ishigaki Island, with a view to generating carbon or biodiversity credits.
At the Ishigaki pilot, Sustainacraft’s satellite remote sensing technology will help measure the biodiversity outcome of restoration activities, before the companies will then use their experience and knowledge to roll out projects across other regions, according to the statement.
“Utilising these results and know-how, in addition to biodiversity and decarbonisation initiatives across the country and around the world, we will also apply them to biodiversity conservation activities already being carried out by operating companies to meet the 2030 [GBF] target,” the statement said.
TNFD
The news comes after the Japanese government last year opened up for companies to earn so-called biodiversity support certificates for companies that provide financial contributions to Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs).
Domestic regulators have designed the credits specifically to be eligible for use under TNFD’s reporting framework, which launched two weeks ago with 320 early adaptors – 80 of them from Japan, more than any other nation.
Tokio Marine said it was looking to have its credits aligned with TNFD requirements as well as the domestic support certificate scheme.
TNFD is shaping up to be by far the world’s biggest corporate biodiversity initiative, and while obligations only relate to reporting, it is also expected to underpin early demand in the emerging global voluntary biodiversity credit market.
Meanwhile, in addition to providing MRV technology, Sustainacraft is also actively consulting in the carbon and biodiversity spaces.
It is participating in a pilot project run by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) on carbon and biodiversity credit quantification technology development, and also led a government-commissioned working group that, in late December, handed over a set of recommendations to regulators on how to improve Japan’s voluntary carbon market.
By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com
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