Nature and carbon standard-setter Plan Vivo Foundation is developing an initiative for measuring the unintended consequences of conservation activities involved in emerging biodiversity markets.
Conservation projects using biodiversity certificate standard PV Nature will be able to use the accounting module or tool, which would be free to access, the Edinburgh-based charity said in a related job announcement.
Applying the carbon concept of ‘leakage’ to biodiversity refers to the unintended consequences of conservation or restoration action in one area, leading to negative impacts elsewhere, such as biodiversity loss, said Toral Shah, biodiversity coordinator at Plan Vivo.
“Plan Vivo is seeking an expert organisation or individual to develop a leakage tool or module for PV Nature,” Shah told Carbon Pulse.
“It is important to consider there may be some leakage as a result of a biodiversity project, therefore we need to be able to assess this impact in order to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of the conservation or restoration efforts as a whole.”
In December, Plan Vivo launched the PV Nature standard for generating tradable biodiversity certificates, with payments in return for units representing support for nature, produced in collaboration with British analytics startup Pivotal.
One unit of a PV Nature biodiversity certificate from a restoration project represents a 1% gain in biodiversity per hectare per year in conservation projects across terrestrial and marine environments.
Over the last few years several papers have tackled biodiversity leakage, including the Dasgupta Review in 2021, a 2023 paper on the leakage of biodiversity risks under EU strategy led by a researcher from the Thunen Institute of Forestry in Germany, and another paper published that year on leakage in nature offsets by academics at the London School of Economics.
TAILORED APPROACH
In voluntary carbon markets, leakage refers to the unintended consequences that occur when efforts to reduce GHG emissions in one area inadvertently lead to increased emissions elsewhere.
The leakage concept applies under PV Climate for carbon credits, but Plan Vivo recognises that a specific and tailored approach is needed to enable its application to biodiversity, Shah said.
“Monitoring leakage in biodiversity projects is not as straightforward as in carbon projects. We would like to develop an approach that supports projects to anticipate, monitor, and mitigate risks of leakage, striking the balance between rigour and practicability.”
MEASURING LEAKAGE
Plan Vivo is looking for a methodology developer to oversee the leakage initiative, who will first determine the form of the project through consultation.
They will consider whether it should result in a ‘leakage risk score’, and a ‘quantified leakage value’ that will be deducted from a project’s gross biodiversity benefits.
After this phase, the developer must submit a tool or methodology that can be used to estimate the leakage risk of PV Nature biodiversity crediting projects. This should be able to evaluate the leakage risk from:
- Conservation or restoration activities
- Connections to local and international markets
- Connections to habitats
By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com
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