A framework aiming to steer businesses and stakeholders wishing to enter the voluntary biodiversity credit markets will be drafted by an expert group brought together by a Swiss research organisation.
The Enterprise for Society Center (E4S)-led research will focus on how to ensure biodiversity credits have measurable nature-positive impacts, while also providing insights for decision-makers ahead of the UN’s COP16 summit in Cali, Colombia.
“For companies venturing into this emerging market, a comprehensive, actionable, and measurable framework is essential to ensure investments yield impactful results,” E4S explained on its website.
“We want to help business and policy-makers achieve a positive impact for biodiversity conservation and restoration,” one of the four researchers, Adrian Dellecker from the Institute for Management Development (IMD), said on LinkedIn.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) recognises in Target 19 the role of biodiversity credits in channelling private investments to nature-positive outcomes by assigning an economic value to efforts to restore ecosystems.
Since the GBF’s establishment in 2022, biodiversity credits have drawn increasing attention as a potential means to meet its ’30×30′ target of restoring 30% of land and sea by 2030.
E4S continued: “In addition to reviewing academic and practitioner literature, we are engaging with existing initiatives focused on developing voluntary biodiversity credits.”
“We are also conducting interviews with experts and business, and putting emphasis on including multiple stakeholders, including local communities.”
The voluntary biodiversity credits market was estimated last year to be worth around $8 million, but if a radical transformation in valuing nature happens, the demand for biodiversity credits could reach an estimated $180 billion annually by 2050, according to a World Economic Forum estimate.
Several organisations are currently working on how to measure the uplift in biodiversity credits. Wallacea Trust, Cercarbono, Verra, Terrasos, and Plan Vivo are also developing approaches to measuring biodiversity uplift in nature-related credits.
In 2022, Paris-based consultants Carbone 4 published a report to outline approaches for developing a methodology for assessing projects’ biodiversity gains, a certification mechanism, and a framework for the market, though it prefers to refer to biodiversity credits as “certificates”.
“The word credit assumes the concept of offsetting or compensation, and we believe that, except in some specific cases, it is hard to give a proper scientific basis to a biodiversity offsetting mechanism,” the head of sustainability at Carbone 4, Arthur Pivin, told Carbon Pulse last week.
Carbone 4 is working with an initiative led by the UK and France to create an international biodiversity market. The two countries plan to have a framework ready in time for the UN biodiversity summit.
By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com
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