EU’s roadmap for nature credits confirms the fears we expressed about the leaked version. We understand that nature credits will most likely be used as international compliance offsets, despite the consensus that biodiversity offsetting is impossible in most cases. We note that privatising conservation policies will weaken them by introducing a profitability requirement. We believe that potential corporate buyers should be very wary of reputational and regulatory risks. We fear that the revenues from the sale of these credits will not prove a poor substitute to decreasing agricultural subsidies.
Last, we understand the main objective to be diverting the conversation away from the need to curb meaningfully biodiversity destruction in Europe, as doing so would hurt short-term growth and competitiveness. In this sense, we understand the politics of biodiversity markets to be like that of carbon offsetting, namely to protect vested interests and the status quo for a few more years, but at the risk of threatening our own survival.
See our brief here