PILOTS

The Association for Coastal Ecosystem Services (ACES) is facilitating a community-led marine biodiversity credit project to conserve vital seagrass meadows in Kenya. The Vanga Seagrass Project will protect the seagrass and its associated biodiversity (including culturally and commercially important fish species) through a Locally Managed Marine Area. The project includes a committee of local representatives to drive forward the project and manage benefit sharing. It aims to provide benefits for both biodiversity and the local community. The project is one of the marine pilot projects under the Plan Vivo Biodiversity Standard (PV Nature). 

Amarenco is a renewable electricity producer that seeks to regenerate ecosystems and their biodiversity on lands where their solar power plants are located. They also support the transition to agroecology where land is actively used for agricultural production. Their program associates technical assistance to farmers and implementers (capacity building, scientific advice) as well as financial support (diversification of species, addition of habitat, specific tools). After outcomes are verified and validated by third parties, they are linked to the electricity generated by energy infrastructures, which is then sold at a premium price to buyers who receive the communication rights on this pure voluntary contribution scheme.

Conservation International and Tidal Moon, an Indigenous-led sustainable enterprise, are working together to develop a project comprising biodiversity credits possibly stacked with blue carbon as part of seagrass restoration efforts in Shark Bay, situated near the western most point of Australia. Shark Bay is home to one of the largest, most diverse seagrass meadows in the world, supporting extremely high levels of marine biodiversity and underpinning the area’s cultural values. The seagrass meadows are also among the oldest globally, classifying the area as an important irrecoverable carbon site. The site was severely impacted by a marine heatwave in 2011 which destroyed 24% of the seagrass meadows. Tidal Moon has trained and employed a number of divers from the local community to undertake restoration as a complement to sustainable sea cucumber harvesting which is core to the efforts. As a result, the project aims to support multiple objectives including the economic development of Mulgana (the traditional custodians of the region) and opportunities to sustain cultural connections and values through caring for the environment.  

CreditNature will undertake the Drumadoon restoration project on the Isle of Arran in Scotland to transform degraded coastal farmland into temperate rainforest, scrublands, and moorland bogs. Large herbivores will be introduced to shape a diverse landscape and support a new nature-based enterprise. The project will be financed through ‘Nature Investment Certificates’ with their price factoring in the costs of land management, resourcing and community benefits, which will be sold through an investment structure currently being developed. Funds from the sale of the certificates will be released at project milestones to deliver the activities. Nature credits are then transferred to certificate owners which represent verified improvements in ecosystem condition, alongside other benefits such as high-quality carbon units and visits to the site. 

Earthly is a B2B company that secures investment into conservation and restoration projects compliant with the BNG regulation in England. The company has issued and sold Voluntary Biodiversity Credits (VBC) since July 2024. Each VBC corresponds to 3x3m parcels of land and is uniquely identified and recorded on a public ledger, which uses What3Words to map every square to avoid double counting.

EDF, an electricity producer, has purchased carbon credits with biodiversity co-benefits issued from La Belle Forêt’s conservation project on the Chambord National Domain, a historical site in France with a large forested area. The Domain has committed to preserve 811 hectares of forest and implement biodiversity and water conservation actions over 4,280 hectares. This conservation project is financed through the purchase of credits by EDF. The project's biodiversity score, which impacts the selling price of the credits, will be reassessed every five years, creating an incentive to deliver improved biodiversity and water conservation outcomes throughout the life of the project. 

Environment Bank launched its Bog Hall Habitat Bank in autumn 2024. Set in the Howardian Hills National Landscape, it aims to triple biodiversity by transforming the landscape over a 30-year period. Through a carefully designed habitat management plan, the project seeks to enhance woodland and hedgerows, encourage natural regeneration, create new grassland with seeds from local wildflower meadows, and promote the return of rare and threatened native birds like turtle doves. With extensive data collection and advanced techniques such as acoustic surveys, camera traps and eDNA analysis, a clear picture can be built of the biodiversity uplifts created by the project's habitat restoration and rewilding endeavours. Businesses can buy Nature Shares, which enable them to contribute to nature recovery and share in the gains generated by the project intervention.

Generali, an insurance group, has partnered with its sister company, the agri-food business Gruppo Leone Alato, to develop a carbon credit compensation project that promotes the reforestation of degraded farmland in Italy. The project is being implemented on Gruppo Leone Alato owned land that is no longer suitable for farming activities. Carbon credits issued from the outcomes of the project are sold to Generali to cover its compensation needs. Where biodiversity restoration activities are undertaken, outcomes are strictly measured. They constitute a voluntary commitment, and are neither credited nor added as a co-benefit to the carbon credit. 

Mikro-Tek Inc. and Wahkohtowin Development General Partnership Inc., a First Nations-owned corporation, have partnered to develop a restoration project in the boreal forest, initiated in the Height of Land – James Bay, Treaty No.9 in Northern Ontario, Canada. It makes use of Improved Forest Management (IFM) technology (based on the use of mycorrhizal fungi) for reforestation and improved planting results to improve carbon sequestration and biodiversity recovery. The project will cover both restoration of harvested sites and the protection of additional areas within the forest, extending over approximately 10.2 million hectares, and will sell both carbon and biodiversity credits.  

L’OCCITANE en Provence, a sustainable premium cosmetics company, started an Agroecology and Fair-Trade collective programme in the Provence and Corsica region of France in 2021. Farms supply a wide range of ingredients, and L’OCCITANE en Provence supports farmers to change their agricultural practices with technical assistance and a premium purchase price. As an example, a supplier of Provençal almond oil for over 20 years has replanted 80 hectares of almond trees: over 17,000 trees. They have pivoted to regenerative agriculture using only organic fertiliser and weeding the fields naturally with sheep, cover crops and micro-irrigation systems. Though the project is not structured on credits, L’OCCITANE en Provence considers that for insetting projects through value chains, biodiversity credits would help to quantify the positive impacts attached to the actions paid via the premium price. It also would lead to new financial mechanisms representing complementary revenues for farmers. Building on this existing network and programme, the project's scope could be expanded to include additional partners, farms, and areas in the South of France, creating a suitable field for a pilot. 

Reforest’Action, a company focused on the restoration and regeneration of forest ecosystems, is partnering with the Guangxi Chongzuo Linda Forestry Company to restore public plots in the Ghizhou area in the west of China. The region was deforested and transformed into farmland, and intensive agriculture led to the deterioration of the soil and increased risk of erosion. The project aims to restore the land’s ecological properties as well as the biodiversity of the area, though the plantation of 1.5 million trees from six species native to the region from 2021 to 2024. Reforest’Action takes a holistic approach to project planning and measurement of impact, covering carbon storage as well as biodiversity and social outcomes through a combination of field monitoring, remote sensing and reporting from project implementers on predefined metrics. 

Savimbo, an Indigenous Peoples and local communities funded and run B-corporation, is implementing the Villagarzón and the Chandia Na'en projects, two biodiversity conservation projects on the border of the tropical Andean biodiversity hotspot between Colombia and Ecuador. Both are crediting projects, awaiting certification, and rely on the Interoperable Biodiversity Unit (IBU) for quantifying biodiversity. The project in Colombia stacks biodiversity credits with carbon credits from an adjacent project. Savimbo has developed guidance for buyers about claims. 

Terrasos is supporting the development of the Alto Río San Juan Habitat Bank – Yerrecuy project, the first Habitat Bank registered and operated by an Afro-Colombian community in Colombia. It is located in the Chocó biogeographical region, a biodiversity hotspot of the country that is threatened by habitat loss and climate change. Through biodiversity credits, this stewardship project aims at securing long-term protection for natural resources in the territory belonging to the Alto San Juan ASOCASAN Community Council. The project's governance includes an ethno-development plan to ensure alignment and communication with the whole community and inclusion of its interests, and a performance-based payment model. 

Wadappt is a service provider, combining a business-to-client approach through a marketplace connecting buyers interested in purchasing biodiversity units with on-the-ground projects co-designed with communities. Block-chain technology is used to secure proof of measurement collected through participatory science protocols on predefined metrics. One of the proposed projects focuses on the protection of the black rhino in Namibia where guards are equipped with a phone application that lets them record evidence and upload it on Wadappt. All collected data is openly accessible on Wadappt's website, and buyers have a specific dashboard dedicated to the project, funded by the units they bought, monitoring all defined metrics of the project. With this service, Wadappt aims to match biodiversity credit projects and buyers, as well as limit the costs for projects where the use of distributed ledger technology limits the need for validation and verification body interventions. 

WWF France has launched the Nature Impact conservation initiative which aims to contribute to the preservation, restoration and sustainable management of forests in France. Through this initiative, WWF incentivises contributors to implement nature commitments and pushes for transformative approaches to corporate efforts for biodiversity. WWF also oversees the reliability of claims by making sure that their content reflects the quality of projects' activities and the accuracy of impact measurement.