Could the carbon credit model help save threatened species?
Could the carbon credit model help save threatened species?
It’s no secret that humans are harming other living things on our planet. About 1 million species of plants and animals could go extinct in the next several decades, according to the United Nations. That’s mostly because of human activity — altering landscapes, hunting animals and changing the climate. Reversing those trends won’t be easy. Or cheap.
The World Economic Forum estimates it could cost almost $1 trillion every year to do work like promoting sustainable agriculture and managing invasive species. Interest is growing around one idea to raise some of that funding: biodiversity credits.
They’re kind of like carbon credits. Organizations get those for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere — or keeping them out. Then they sell them to others who get the “credit” for lowering emissions. Ideally, they spur climate action.
“I had an idea that a similar principle could be applied on financing of nature conservation and nature restoration,” said Aleksandra Holmlund, a Ph.D. student at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. “So why are we not doing it?”
Holmlund is testing a way for foresters to make money with biodiversity credits. She believes “this might actually be an opportunity to provide new income streams.”
Her team has partnered with Orsa Besparingsskog, a Swedish forest, to test the idea. Basically, landowners get credits for trying techniques that are expected to help biodiversity.
“All these nitty-gritty little details that would mimic old growth qualities of an older forest,” Holmlund said.
Swedbank, a Stockholm-based bank, purchased the credits for the pilot. Ulf Möller leads the bank’s forests and agriculture work. He sees growing interest in biodiversity finance.
“All this change is going to cost money,” he explained. “And when do you need a bank? When you need money.”
Others are also taking a look. Maxim Vergeichik is an economist with the U.N. He helps organize the Biodiversity Credit Alliance, a group of developers like Holmlund who are also experimenting with credit methods.
Something they’re hoping to nail down is what exactly biodiversity credits measure. One carbon credit equals one ton of carbon dioxide or the equivalent amount of another greenhouse gas.
But for biodiversity “nothing like that exists in nature,” Vergeichik said, “because there’s no single metric. It’s actually very sort of context-specific.”
Vergeichik thinks trials like Holmlund’s will help determine the best approaches for different situations. Getting that right is important. Recent scrutiny of carbon markets has turned off some investors who fear those credits are giving corporations recognition for environmental benefits that aren’t happening, often called greenwashing. The Biodiversity Credit Alliance aims to avoid that.
“Our job,” Vergeichik explained, “is just probably to observe and make sure that as they happen, purchases are done in an integral way from the point of view of greenwashing, so to speak, and that the basic science is there.”
Vergeichik doesn’t see a biodiversity credit boom around the corner. But, he added, in a few years, things could grow pretty fast.
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