The Environment Bank is aiming to fund a rage of sustainable investments; the biodiversity credits aim to provide businesses with a mechanism to achieve their environmental targets.
The available schemes include fully funded nature recovery projects, science-based monitoring and reporting strategies.
The Environment Bank states that it has over 6,000 acres of land habitat creation underway, through privately funded nature recovery.
It is now offering businesses the opportunity to buy credits related to these schemes.
The news follows the launch of the UN’s new Taskforce on Nature Related Financial Disclosures framework (TNFD), which was set out at Climate Week NYC.
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The framework includes a set of 14 recommended disclosures for nature related impacts, risks and dependencies on biodiversities with frameworks like the TNFD and the Science-Based target network.
The Environment Bank said in a statement that it expects these to become requirements for businesses in the future.
Speaking to sustainability-focused publication Edie, Environment Bank CEO James Cross said: “Environment Bank’s biodiversity credits mark a new value proposition for the private sector to support nature uplift across ecosystems, removing the barriers that have historically existed in biodiversity investments”.
“Scalable and impactful delivery of nature restoration projects will be key to tackling climate change, and the private sector has a huge role to play. Biodiversity Credits will make nature economically viable.”
“We do not get to net-zero without nature, and it’s time to put repairing the planet first on the agenda.”
Biodiversity credits and offsetting have received criticism for allowing corporations to continue to function as normal, by “offsetting” their impact.
An investigation by The Guardian newspaper recently stated that many carbon offset schemes, such as those accredited by Verra, largely have little to no environmental worth.
