Harnessing biodiversity credits at the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact

The Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, which took place in Paris from June 22 to 23, offered a unique opportunity to move forward in building a new natural capital economy, in which high-integrity biodiversity credits play an important role.

The deliberations at the One Forest Summit, informed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) report on innovative finance for nature and people, argued that it is necessary to facilitate the creation and growth of markets for high-integrity biodiversity credits, both voluntary and mandatory, in a credible, timely and internationally consistent manner.

This can only work if these credits have measurable positive impacts on biodiversity and equitable outcomes at both national and local levels, particularly for indigenous peoples and local communities.

The necessary rules and guidelines can only be built through co-design and international cooperation between policy-makers, regulators, scientific and other experts, project developers and other market players, as well as IPLCs (indigenous peoples and local communities).

At the request of the French government, NatureFinance and Carbone4, in close collaboration with the GEF, have produced a report that implements the recommendations presented at the One Forest Summit, provides an overview of the most recent developments in the biodiversity credits landscape and addresses the need to harness these innovations to increase biodiversity financing.

At this Summit event on June 22, the UK and France launched an open and inclusive process by co-chairing an Advisory Panel that will work with other countries and key partners to facilitate the consolidation of existing processes and initiatives and support their convergence, with a view to increasing the use of biodiversity-positive carbon credits and biodiversity certificates, and progressively structuring the biodiversity credit market.

The aim of this group is to draw up a "roadmap to harness high-integrity biodiversity credits", which will draw on and bring together the most important and influential collective thinking on these biodiversity credits.