Solar farms have the potential to significantly increase biodiversity in the UK and scale investments in ‘nature positive’, provided that appropriate metrics for evaluation are established, a report has found.
The research, led by York University as part of a Natural Environment Research Council initiative, underlined how investing in solar farm projects can be key for promoting clean energy while boosting nature protection in the country.
Authors assessed different metrics based on their potential to monitor and report on ‘nature positive’ investments at solar farms, identifying a number that could better fit the purpose.
The study grouped the indicators depending on solar farm stakeholders’ priorities. While land managers are primarily concerned with the feasibility of measuring biodiversity on the ground, finance stakeholders and those involved with corporate reporting prioritise metrics that can provide broad-level information across a portfolio of assets.
These metrics include habitat connectivity index, number of ecosystem services actively managed, soil carbon content, habitat area, and plant, pollinator, and bird species richness.
“The indicators best-suited to reporting on management outcomes at site-level are different from those needed for nature-related financial disclosures or strategic reporting to investors,” the study said.
“These indicators and metrics need to meet the needs of different parts of the solar value chain, including law firms, investment banks, asset managers, pension funds, solar farm management companies, and ecological consultancies.”
EXISTING METHODOLOGIES
Methodologies addressing some of these metrics already exist in the country, such as the UK Habitat Classification (UKHab) and the Solar Energy UK methodologies.
The study also mentioned the opportunity for solar farms to become habitat banks under the biodiversity net gain (BNG) policy, as related biodiversity units could be registered and sold on the compliance market.
“As well as providing a potential source of income to fund further enhancements and additionality, these biodiversity units demonstrate nature positive actions, enhancing reputational value, and generating important evidence for regulatory and voluntary nature-related financial disclosures,” said the study.
Nature has been increasingly included in corporate sustainability reporting frameworks, including the voluntary Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) recommendations and the mandatory EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
“The metrics available, and the emerging reporting frameworks, are bringing nature out of the realms of intangible benefits, and into the realms of asset management,” said the project director, Tim Coles, the founder of Operation Wallacea and CEO of biodiversity project developer RePlanet.
“This shift has the potential to unlock huge funding potential for nature.”
In the past few months, several initiatives have been launched to define what ‘nature positive’ is in various contexts, as business, government, and civil society have struggled so far to align on its meaning.
In July, the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC), an industry network seeking to implement sustainable practices, established a working group to identify a standard definition, as the term has recently gained traction within the sector.
In May, the Nature Positive Initiative partnered with consultants EY and The Biodiversity Consultancy to establish metrics tailored to ‘nature positive’ claims.
The partnership launch came after nearly 30 organisations banded together under the NPI in September, seeking to better define the term. Members of the coalition include disclosure standards the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and TNFD, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), plus non-profits The Nature Conservancy and WWF.
By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com
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