- Environment Secretary and French State Minister Bérangère Couillard launch Global Roadmap to support companies to contribute to nature recovery
- The Global Roadmap will support global cooperation to provide positive outcomes for people and the planet
- Joint UK-France initiated Advisory Panel will harness and bring together collective thinking on biodiversity credits from all around the world
Efforts to mobilise global nature finance in support of the COP15 Biodiversity Framework have today (22 June 2023) been stepped up with the launch of a new biodiversity credits initiative.
The new UK- French Global Biodiversity Credits Roadmap launched by Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey at the Summit for a New Financial Pact in Paris sets out a plan for scaling up global efforts to support companies buying credits that contribute to the recovery of nature in a credible way.
Biodiversity credits are instruments that allow individuals and companies to invest in environmental projects that contribute to a richer biodiversity or restore nature. This could be in a rainforest, ocean, grasslands or other habitats globally. A credit would record where the environmental action has taken place, who has developed it, and how it is measured and checked.
The Global Roadmap will facilitate the sharing of best practice on the governance mechanisms for credit funding, monitoring regimes to ensure biodiversity improvements, and the fair distribution of income to indigenous peoples and local communities. The roadmap will work towards key international milestones, such as the 2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP16), where financing for biodiversity will be high on the agenda.
A new UK-French initiated Advisory Panel was also announced - jointly chaired by Dame Amelia Fawcett for the UK and Sylvie Goulard for France - which will pool together expert voices from around the world to form and guide diverse working groups to drive forward positive change.
Environment Secretary, Thérèse Coffey, said:
Mobilising finance is key to meeting the global goals set out in the COP15 agreement. Initiatives like the Roadmap on Biodiversity Credits launched today will help ensure private sector financing is leveraged to conserve and restore nature. We're grateful to be working alongside France and look forward to collaborating with many other countries and organisations in delivering the roadmap.
We will continue to be a world leader in supporting efforts to halt the decline in nature, protect wildlife and restore the natural world - building on the key role we played in supporting the agreement of the ambitious Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in December.
Dame Amelia Fawcett, co-chair of the UK-French Advisory Panel, said:
I am delighted to be asked by the Governments of France and the United Kingdom to co-chair this important and inclusive Advisory Group which will help the global community maximise the benefits to Nature, people and planet represented by biodiversity credit markets.
With global extinction rates higher than they have ever been, and ambitious global targets to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030, the stakes have never been higher - and we need every part of society to play its part in helping fund Nature's recovery.
The UK Government has already made clear through the 10 Point Plan the need to urgently explore the role of biodiversity credits in closing the nature finance gap - and in France the announcement follows the launch of the Positive Conservation Partnerships (PCPs) at COP27 which recommended the scale up of biodiversity credits.
Today's Global Roadmap announcement comes at a critical moment, providing a unique opportunity to move forward on building a new natural capital economy in which high integrity biodiversity credits have an important role.
