Find Your Biodiversity Fit
We face the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, both largely driven by human development.
Many organizations have committed to decreasing their carbon footprint. One method is through the purchase of nature-based carbon credits, generated by land management projects optimized for carbon sequestration. While these projects sequester carbon, they are not always designed to benefit biodiversity, and some projects may support healthy ecosystems better than others.
Biodiversity is a complex phenomenon to measure, and this tool endeavors to take those complexities into account. This tool is designed to inform carbon credit buyers’ purchasing decisions with information about project characteristics that could provide biodiversity co-benefits. Many of the metrics used to analyze these co-benefits are aligned with the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) and the Taskforce for Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) to help buyers report on their efforts and standardize across business operations.
Two Key Determinants of Biodiversity Benefits
There are two key determinants of how carbon credit projects impact biodiversity: Project Location and Project Design.
The location of a carbon credit project influences its potential to support biodiversity, while the design of a project determines the extent to which those biodiversity co-benefits are actualized.
Project Location
Project Design
Project Location
Where a carbon credit project is situated plays a critical role in its ability to support biodiversity. Some locations historically have been home to a vast array of species, such as tropical rainforests, while others tend to hold less biodiversity, like deserts. Some locations are better suited for protecting endangered species, while others may present great opportunities for restoring a degraded habitat. The three characteristics below are measures of how project location may influence a carbon credit project’s potential to support biodiversity.
Species Presence
Species Presence indicates the presence of existing species within the project region, demonstrating the amount of biodiversity that would benefit from conserving nature in the area. Buyers interested in supporting and protecting areas with high levels of existing biodiversity may choose to purchase carbon credits that score highly in this category.
Species Threat
Species Threat indicates the extent to which the species of a region are under threat, generally due to human development and land-use activities, or the importance of a project’s location to threatened species. Carbon credit buyers with goals to protect endangered or certain charismatic, threatened species may choose to purchase credits from projects that score highly in this category.
Restoration Potential
Restoration Potential reflects the degree to which ecosystem function in a region has been degraded by human activities and can be restored, potentially by biodiversity-positive carbon credit projects. Buyers that prioritize restoring degraded habitat or amending damages caused by commercial or extractive activities may choose to purchase credits from projects that score highly in this category.
To learn more about the scoring methodology used in this analysis, please download the full report.
Project Design
While a carbon credit project’s geographic location influences its potential to support biodiversity, the project must actually be designed to implement actions that do so. For instance, a project that is planting a forest in a previously degraded habitat may choose to plant a biodiverse polyculture of various native trees and shrubs, or it could grow a monoculture plantation of an invasive species. Additionally, projects that employ extractive practices, such as timber harvesting or mining, may support biodiversity to a lesser extent than a project that does not extract resources. Finally, how a project associates with its surrounding human community may also influence how that community interacts with the ecosystem.
Primary Project Attributes
Primary Project Attributes assess key design features that impact a project's contribution to ecosystem health. Our analysis reveals that certain projects are better suited to support biodiversity based on their activities and implementation. In particular, we focused on whether or not a project primarily uses invasive species, if it extracts resources for commercial purposes, and if it uses a diverse range of species or is primarily a monoculture.
Community Impact
Nature’s Contribution to people (NCP) groups values to communities offered by carbon removal projects into four categories: materials, companionship, and labor; learning and inspiration; physical and psychological experiences; supporting identities. To see how each project has outlined how it engages with the local community to ensure inclusive participation and shared benefits, head to the Explore page.
Additionality & Assurance
Biodiversity additionality in carbon credit projects ensures that biodiversity co-benefits would not have occurred without the incentive provided by carbon credit revenues. A project is considered additional if it goes beyond business-as-usual practices and overcomes barriers that would otherwise prevent its implementation. This concept is crucial to guarantee that the carbon credits represent genuine biodiversity benefits.
Explore
Explore
Click to explore five case study carbon credit projects and see how they impact biodiversity.