The Scottish government has backed a project to produce a certification standard for community participation in nature projects, with a wide net of collaborators spanning the private and public sectors.
The Community Benefits Certification Mark has received £240,000 in total towards its aim of establishing a scheme that can plug into UK carbon credit schemes alongside prospective voluntary markets in biodiversity, soil, and water.
The certification seeks to create a single transparent place for all nature markets to show they are achieving best practice in long-term community involvement with defined benefits. It aims to launch in May 2025, following the close of its first phase in March.
Funding comes from Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS), which is co-backed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with the Scottish government.
The Nature Finance Certification Alliance (NFCA) will offer the intellectual property of the certification, working in collaboration with an investment platform, experts, academics, natural capital developers, and a government agency (see below for list).
Co-hosted by Fife Coast & Countryside Trust and Iconic Blockchain, the NCFA is an alliance to support UK nature finance with members spanning investors and conservation organisations.
The community standard aims to eventually be available across all UK-focused ecosystem services schemes, including alongside emerging biodiversity credits methodologies, said Simon Herko, NCFA co-chair.
Initially, the community standard has partnered with natural capital investment platform Kana to make the standard usable from launch next year – rather than just publishing a framework, Herko told Carbon Pulse.
“We’re now in a market readiness phase. We’ve got to take our proof of concept and actually make it operational,” said Herko.
Most of the work so far is linked to Scotland, but NCFA would like the standard to be usable in nature schemes across the UK.
The non-profit Soil Association, a verifier of the UK Woodland Carbon Code, is set to audit usage of the standard in several pilots generating carbon credits later this year. The standard is also working closely with the British Standards Institute, which sits on the project’s advisory board, to ensure their community work is aligned, Herko said.
SIX PILOTS ACROSS UK
A draft best practice guide, with 10 steps for how nature-based projects can engage with their target community, has already been published by the community standard.
These steps are being trialled in five nature pilots in Scotland, and one in England with conservation company Nattergal.
For example, CreditNature is applying the community standard while piloting its Nature Investment Certificates in Dreel Burn, Fife across 5,000 hectares of agricultural land.
CreditNature has taken community benefits into account through following local priorities of working towards a clean river and protecting key industries such as tourism.
Scotland does not have a clear biodiversity credit strategy yet, but project developer CreditNature is in the process of developing a platform for biodiversity credits in the country, backed by the government.
“The Scottish government don’t want to contradict what the English have done, they just want to add to their framework what they feel is maybe missing or more important to Scotland,” said Herko.
“Community benefits is the [Scottish] linchpin policy, which differentiates them from the current policy out there in England,” he said. England’s biodiversity net gain legislation has been mandatory for developers since February.
Organisations collaborating on the community standard include:
- Natural capital developers Trees for Life, Nattergal, CreditNature, Highlands Rewilding, and The Future Forest Company
- Nature investment platform Kana
- Community experts Deciding Matters, Foundation Scotland, and Strathclyde Institute for Sustainable Communities
- Sustainability experts Realise Earth
- Government agency Scottish Land Commission
- Scotland’s Rural College
- Soil Association
By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com
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