Environment Agency teams up with private bank on conservation credit system

The Environment Agency is working with the Environment Bank to build a market where developers and companies have to purchase conservation credits for destroying ecosystems or decreasing biodiversity through their projects. The credits will then be used to adapt coastal land in Essex and Suffolk that are registered to the Environment Bank.

Conservation credits
The Environment Bank has been created specially to implement a new market mechanism using environment or eco credits to mitigate the negative consequences of development on biodiversity. The conservation credit system is also being in piloted in the Thames Headwaters. Using the credits, it is expected that these coastal areas will receive the necessary care to adapt to rising sea levels while reducing flood risk and promoting biodiversity.

With increased carbon emissions, global temperatures are continuing to rise, melting ice and raising sea levels. The Government estimates that by 2080 with medium emissions, sea levels around the UK will rise by about 36 centimetres. Rising sea levels threaten coastal environments, making them uninhabitable and decreasing the biodiversity of the area.

White Paper
The Government is expected to include conservation credits in the Natural Environment White Paper, which is expected later this spring.

"This is an exciting and innovative project which we hope will facilitate the delivery of our coastal flood risk management projects by creating a new market for intertidal habitat creation around our coast in Essex and Suffolk," said Dr Charles Beardall, Environment Agency area manager. "We will support the Environment Bank in exploring this approach with the partnerships we have developed throughout our Shoreline Management Plans locally. This is a good demonstration of private sector investment working alongside public bodies to create wider environmental, economic and societal benefits for coastal communities."

Shell Foundation
The Shell Foundation has announced that it will help fund development and provide expertise over the next year. The project will no only promote biodiversity in coastal regions, but the markets will provide opportunities for private investments in the biodiversity market that has an estimated global value of £6.1 billion ($10 billion) annually.

"Creating markets for ecosystem goods and services should stop the environment being treated as a non-replenishing extractive industry. We think that offsetting will naturally expand to encompass water, carbon (sequestration), nutrients, flood risk mitigation and natural resource restoration," said David Hill, Environment Bank chairman. "The model we have developed, together with the trading infrastructure we are constructing, will be capable of listing, registering and validating credits in respect of the full range of emerging markets for ecosystem services and we are grateful to The Shell Foundation for all their support."


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Related links:
www.environmentbank.com