Nature credit markets are emerging across the global economy. Their public purpose must be to deliver equitable, nature positive outcomes and contribute to addressing climate goals. Insights are being crowded in through experimentation and co-designed initiatives. This includes initiatives being led by governments, multi-stakeholder processes, business-led innovations, with growing voices and design approaches advanced by indigenous peoples and local communities.
Such efforts are exemplified by the contribution of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Expert Panel to the OneForest Summit in Libreville, Gabon, in early March 2023. Similarly, the Australian Government has taken leadership in advancing what would be the first national regulatory framework for biodiversity credit markets. Other key collaborative initiatives include the Biodiversity Credit Alliance and the World Economic Forum’s Working Group on Biodiversity Credit Markets, both of which NatureFinance is a part of.
The opportunity is to develop an impactful generation of biodiversity credit markets that drive investment into the efforts by nature’s steward’s to protect and regenerate nature. The risk is that such efforts will prove underwhelming, or worse still, part of the problem. Recent experience with voluntary carbon markets has not been encouraging. A phase shift is needed in the ambition, design, governance and practice of nature credit markets.
Within this frame, NatureFinance and Taskforce on Nature Markets intend for “The Future of Biodiversity Credit Markets” to provide a landscape and some practical proposals to contribute towards collective efforts.
This paper is a work-in-progress. As such, it is an invitation to contribute extended to the many expert, experienced stakeholders shaping the future of nature credit markets.
We welcome your comments and suggestions that will enable us to continue to build out a broadly embraced approach to the design, governance and execution of high-performance nature credit markets.
Comments, feedback, and suggestions on this consultation paper can be sent to: Dorothée Herr, Senior Associate, NatureFinance – dorothee.herr@naturefinance.net.
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