Australian biodiversity credit developer Wilderlands has just passed 100,000 units sold, each of which protects one square metre of land, but wants to increase that ten-fold within the next year.

This equates to 10 hectares, the company said in a release this week. The company plans to increase this to a million in the coming year.

“I would be confident that we’ve sold more individual biodiversity units than anyone else on the planet,” co-founding CEO Heath Evans told Carbon Pulse.

Most biodiversity project developers eyeing the credit market generate credits per hectare, though Colombian outfit Terrasos has had good uptake of its units, which each represent the protection of 10 sq. m.

“We’re bringing together a range of stakeholders, from many sectors to talk about how we’ve done, what type of partnerships we’ve done, looking at the case studies,” Evans said of an event to be held Wednesday night in Melbourne to celebrate this milestone.

The company started in Aug. 2022 and has four projects under management across Australia; it recently announced a partnership with skin product seller al.ive that will see one credit attached to each packet of body wash and lotion sold. The product is inspired by flora of the Coorong, one of Wilderlands’ project areas in coastal South Australia.

“There’s a lot of talk about what’s happening in the biodiversity market, but the ability to actually show real world results and how we’re selling to both individuals, SMEs (small-to-medium enterprises), but also large businesses, hopefully inspires that there is change happening and highlights progress in the biodiversity market, ” Evans said.

As Wilderlands plans its massive scale-up, the company has a total supply of 5 million units available.

“Wilderlands aims to protect 1 million square metres of land over the next 12 months and expects the inclusion of nature into ESG commitments to drive biodiversity credit purchases, as well as opportunities within corporate gifting, events, products, and even the built environment showing avenues to sales of credits as a solution,” its release reads.

Its credits for now remain untradeable; once bought they are held by the primary buyer in perpetuity.

Some other early movers in the biodiversity market have also emphasised that their credits will not be eligible for secondary trade, largely as an attempt to ensure that rich-world intermediaries don’t move into the market to reap all the benefits, while Indigenous peoples and local communities – which are often the stewards of land where the credits are created – are left with little benefit to show.

However, Co-founder and CEO Ash Knop sees a tradeable market more like its carbon counterpart as an “inevitability”, given there are some players who see a secondary market as the best way to engage with the marketplace.

“The … reason why we’d like to see a secondary market is because that one imagines it as a reflection of a thriving primary market, which means we are protecting more nature,” he said.

TWO TIME INVESTMENT

Wilderlands promises both “forever protection” and 20-year oversight of its project areas, which has confused some. The former is linked to conservation covenants as part of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TfND),which is yet to be finalised.

“It does confuse people,” Knop said.

“All of the projects that we’ve unitised have been permanently protected through those legal mechanisms. And those mechanisms ensure that there are third-party surveying going on to ensure that those projects are being monitored,” he said.

“It takes quite a bit for a property to become covenanted in the first place, quite a rigorous process.”

“The 20 years of active management sits alongside that. It’s virtually impossible to work out what it would cost to actively manage a patch of vegetation forever. And so we’ve created that mechanism and priced that mechanism based on supporting the funding of that active management for 20 years,” he continued.

A portion of the funds go to the project developer and the rest are managed and paid to local conservation partners annually.

AN INVERSE CARBON MARKET: DEMAND LAGS SUPPLY

“From a carbon perspective, the supply side is a challenge, whereas the demand side is not so much. In the biodiversity credit space, at least in the voluntary biodiversity credit space, it’s pretty much the opposite,” Evans said.

Supply for new biodiversity projects isn’t an issue, but generating demand is, despite a changing customer profile.

“It’s about generating enough demand. That then gives us confidence to be able to effectively turn on new projects so that we can work with landowners and promise them that we’re going to be able to fulfil their financial needs and requirements to help support their projects over a given period of time,” Knop said.

“[The TNFD] will be a natural place for biodiversity credits like ours to play a part in fulfilling that,” he added, referring to the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, upon which many in the market pin their hopes for a source of demand.

“We’re already having conversations with some of those early adopters of the TNFD who are viewing our particular credit as a solution that might fulfil some of their nature positive aspirations.”

This is longer term, however.

Wilderlands has been out looking for suitable partners whose customer base would also be interested in being involved in these credits, such as the patrons of the long-running Adelaide Festival, or buyers of high-end body products al.ive. Costs for these are built into the individual product price. The upside of the Adelaide tickets is that credits are for co-located projects, giving ticket holders buy-ins to biodiverse areas near them.

Others buy the credits as gifts for others, such as corporate gifting platforms.

By Helen Clark – helen@carbon-pulse.com

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