PH888 login Register.REGISTER NOW GET FREE 888 PESOS REWARDS!

This twentieth issue of The Nature Intelligence Newsletter is the first of a series on the indicators & metrics used by biodiversity credit schemes. It focuses on the "cooking analogy" to explain the roles of indicators. It covers:

an introduction to the cooking analogy: indicators (ingredients) used to calculate (recipe) potential credits (dishes)
understanding the recipe: focus on "potential credits" are assessed and why it matters
lessons learned & biodiversity credit market intelligence from applying the cooking analogy

?

This series is itself part of a broader focus on biodiversity credits within The Nature Intelligence Newsletter:

The next issues will detail the main indicators used by biodiversity credit schemes, and delve into the recipe of 13 leading schemes.

Introducing the cooking analogy

In January 2024, Simas Gradeckas and I first discussed collaborating on updating his analysis of the indicators & metrics used by biodiversity credit schemes. A few months later, we started the work - which Simas initially thought would be quick to complete! -. Several weeks of work and a number of discussions later, and thanks to the help of Giada Lampitelli , in late July 2024, we released our joint analysis and the associated database .

Collaborating with Simas was really enriching. Not only did he conducted in-depth research on every scheme in the market we have struggled to complete alone, but our discussions also pushed us to make our messages and analyses especially clear and easy to understand. That's how we came up with the "cooking analogy".

Discussions with corporates revolve around what the credits represent

Many reports and analyses have focused on "ingredients" so far but if we take the carbon analogy, what people are interested about is how much CO2-eq is stored when they buy a carbon credit, i.e. the "dishes", not the indicators tracked by the carbon credit project developers.

Similarly, discussions I have with corporates which might be interested in buying biodiversity credits revolve around - among other things - what do the credits represent.

Are they condition-adjusted areas like the negative impacts they have assessed using tools like the #GlobalBiodiversityScore (GBS) or Corporate Biodiversity Footprint (CBF) which both use the #MeanSpeciesAbundance (MSA) metric, or like impacts assessed using other ecosystem condition metrics like the Ecosystem Integrity Index (EII) or Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII)?

Or are they a weighted average of a number of factors difficult to understand?

The next key question is: what "nutriscore" (to keep the cooking analogy) do you apply to a credit to take into account ecosystem & species value. An endangered ecosystem could be considered more valuable ("nutriscore A") than a common one ("nutriscore E").

Paying attention to the recipe

Imagine a cake with 2 teaspoons of flour and 200g of salt instead of the opposite, it might surprise you!

Just like for cakes, when you want a good quality biodiversity credits, you should not just pay attention to the ingredients but also to the recipe. Great ingredients can be wasted if they're not combined in the right proportions and in the right order!

The recipes used by 13 leading schemes will be the focus of a future Nature Intelligence Newsletter, but you can already read more in a post published earlier .

First observations from our review of 140 indicators

So, what do we learn from looking at the leading schemes and the 140 or so indicators they use with a cooking lens?

Here are 3 key observations:

1. Ecosystem condition indicators dominate - and many dishes are also pure Condition-adjusted areas . A comprehensive biodiversity strategy nonetheless needs to deal both with species and ecosystems.

2. The key variables to check to compare recipes are:

Calculation indicator?(condition-adjusted area, etc.)
Activity considered (restoration, conservation, stewardship)
Consideration of time
Consideration of significance
Indicator flexibility?
Uplift measurement system (absolute vs relative)

3. Currently, disclosure and target-setting frameworks do not mention biodiversity credits. But they all mention ecosystem condition as a key indicator to measure. They may thus align indirectly, since ecosystem condition is also measured by biodiversity credit schemes (cf. point 1).

Please share your thoughts in comments! And please let me know if there is a topic you'd like me to cover in the future!

If you found this issue of the newsletter useful, please remember to subscribe and feel free to spread it by liking, commenting or sharing it (for subscribers receiving it in their inbox, please click on the blue button below to be able to like)!

Disclaimer: all views are mine and do not represent any institution or initiative's.

Access previous issues of the Nature Intelligence Newsletter:

Case studies and examples

#01 - Impacts on ecosystem integrity of a listed equity index assessed for the first time - STOXX600

#08 - Getting inspired: 3 front-runners who assessed their biodiversity impacts at the corporate level

#09 - Ecosystem condition: direct measurement and assessment of regulatory offsets

Ecosystem condition definition and metrics

#02 - All you ever wanted to know about the MSA

#03 - Ecosystem condition: the indicator to watch for corporate biodiversity performance

Biodiversity measurement tools

#04 – Differences between the corporate biodiversity metrics

#05 - Charting path: navigating the biodiversity tool wilderness - part 1 - The compasses