Coordinating Research Around Biodiversity Net GainProject
At its heart, BNG frames a challenging question: in a world where new housing, workplaces and other land use needs are deemed essential; is it possible to provide this infrastructure without Nature bearing the brunt of the costs?
Biodiversity net gain (BNG) is mandatory legislation in England designed to that aims to compensate for the biodiversity loss caused by development projects. The UK government describes the scheme as follows:
Biodiversity net gain ( BNG ) is a way of creating and improving natural habitats. BNG makes sure development has a measurably positive impact (‘net gain’) on biodiversity, compared to what was there before development.
BNG is not without controversy. There are multiple examples of it leading to perverse outcomes, failing to do what it was intended to do and suffering from a lack or resources to sufficiently regulate. There are also a number of vibrant habitats that have been created in part due to funding (or the prospect of funding) from BNG. A good overview of some of the issues and controversies with BNG are outlined in this podcast:
At its heart, a scheme that intends to have a positive impact on biodiversity is credible but as with so many market-driven approaches there are numerous challenges in making these schemes work effectively . Oxford University has published a wide range of research outputs relating the Biodiversity Net Gain. The team at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery have undertaken the project to coordinate this research and reach out to internal and external partners so as to bring together a diverse set of voices and understand how this scheme could be incrementally improved over time. The Centre is also promoting discussions with research teams that feel more radical overhauls may be required. At its heart, BNG frames a challenging question: in a world where new housing, workplaces and other land use needs are deemed essential; is it possible to provide this infrastructure without Nature bearing the brunt of the costs?
Project outputs
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
- Integration
Sven Wunder, Cecilia Fraccaroli, Joseph W. Bull, Trishna Dutta, Alison Eyres, Megan C. Evans, Bo Jellesmark Thorsen, Julia P.G. Jones, Martine Maron, Bart Muys, Andrea Pacheco, Asger Strange Olesen, Thomas Swinfield, Yitagesu Tekle Tegegne, Thomas B. White, Han Zhang, Sophus O.S.E. zu Ermgassen (2024). Biodiversity credits: learning lessons from other approaches to incentivize conservation.. Preprint.
Biodiversity credits are an emerging vehicle for pro-environmental financing. Here we define and delimit biodiversity credits and explore the pathways through which credits can be issued. We scrutinize early evidence from pilots and suggest lessons from other market-based incentives for conservation and climate mitigation, including biodiversity offsets and forest carbon credits that have attracted large private funding flows, but have been questioned regarding their additionality, permanence, and leakage. All these issues apply to biodiversity credits, but they face yet another challenge: rendering biodiversity commensurable. While new monitoring technologies can help quantify biodiversity, tradeoffs exist between simple metrics that enable liquid markets, and costly ones that more adequately represent biodiversity. To avoid carbon and offset market mistakes, biodiversity credit design, implementation, and impact evaluation requires more robust crediting baselines, standards, and governance. Quality credits will be more expensive than those cutting integrity corners, which may dampen the expected biodiversity credit boom
Maron, M., Quétier, F., Sarmiento, M., ten Kate, K., Evans, M. C., Bull, J.W., Jones, J. P. G., zu Ermgassen, S. O. S. E., Milner-Gulland, E. J., Brownlie, S., Treweek, J., von Hase, A. (2023). ‘Nature positive’ must incorporate, not undermine, the mitigation hierarchy. Nature Ecology & Evolution .
For the concept of nature positive to succeed as the lodestar for international action on biodiversity conservation, it must build upon lessons learned from the application of the mitigation hierarchy — or risk becoming mere greenwash.
Sven Wunder, Cecilia Fraccaroli, Joseph W. Bull, Trishna Dutta, Alison Eyres, Megan C. Evans, Bo Jellesmark Thorsen, Julia P.G. Jones, Martine Maron Bart Muys, Andrea Pacheco, Asger Strange Olesen, Thomas Swinfield, Yitagesu Tekle Tegegne, Thomas B. White, Han Zhang, Sophus O.S.E. zu Ermgassen (2024). PREPRINT: Biodiversity credits: learning lessons from other approaches to incentivize conservation. .
Biodiversity credits are an emerging vehicle for pro-environmental financing. Here we define and delimit biodiversity credits and explore the pathways through which credits can be issued. We scrutinize early evidence from pilots and suggest lessons from other market-based incentives for conservation and climate mitigation, including biodiversity offsets and forest carbon credits that have attracted large private funding flows, but have been questioned regarding their additionality, permanence, and leakage.
Talitha Bromwich, Thomas White, Alice Bouchez, Isobel Hawkins, Sophus zu Ermgassen, Joseph W. Bull, Harriet Bartlett, Leon Bennun, Elizabeth Biggs, Hollie Booth, Michael Clark, Sami El Geneidy, Graham Prescott, Laura Sonter, Malcolm Starkey, and E.J. Milner-Gulland (2024). PREPRINT: Navigating uncertainty in LCA-based approaches to biodiversity footprinting. Methods in Ecology and Evolution.
The use of Life cycle assessment (LCA) methods is rapidly expanding as a means of estimating the biodiversity impacts of organisations across complex value chains. However, these methods have limitations and substantial uncertainties, which are rarely communicated in the results of LCAs. Drawing upon the ecological and LCA literature on uncertainty and two worked examples of biodiversity footprinting, we outline where different types of uncertainty occur across multiple stages of the LCA process, from input data to the choice of biodiversity metric. Some uncertainties are epistemic, incorporating structural (e.g., the types of pressures included in models), parametric (e.g., uncertainty around conversion factors), and measurement uncertainty, as well as natural variability, stochasticity, and information gaps.
Sophus O. S. E. zu Ermgassen, Katie Devenish, B. Alexander Simmons, Ascelin Gordon, Julia P. G. Jones, Martine Maron, Henrike Schulte to Bühne, Roshan Sharma, Laura J. Sonter, Niels Strange, Michelle Ward, Joseph W. Bull (2023). Evaluating the impact of biodiversity offsetting on native vegetation. Global Change Biology.
Biodiversity offsetting is a globally influential policy mechanism for reconciling trade-offs between development and biodiversity loss. However, there is little robust evidence of its effectiveness. We evaluated the outcomes of a jurisdictional offsetting policy (Victoria, Australia). Offsets under Victoria’s Native Vegetation Framework (2002–2013) aimed to prevent loss and degradation of remnant vegetation, and generate gains in vegetation extent and quality.
Shuo Gao, Joseph W. Bull, Julia Baker, Sophus O. S. E. zu Ermgassen, E. J. Milner-Gulland (2023). Analyzing the outcomes of China’s ecological compensation scheme for development-related biodiversity loss. Conservation Science and Practice.
Over the past three decades, China’s government has implemented many projects under its ecological compensation policy, including paying compensation fees for habitat creation to redress natural habitat losses caused by development. However, a critical evaluation of both the policy design and its ecological outcomes, has not previously been carried out. We assemble diverse data sources to provide the first evaluation of China’s eco-compensation policy and practice, identifying several challenges.
Sophus zu Ermgassen, Katie Kedward, Andrew Allen, Alexandre Chausson, Michael Clark, Natalie Duffus, Georgina Holmes-Skelton, Mariana Mazzucato, Katherine Simpson, Puninda Thind, and Erik Gomez-Baggethun (2024). Mission-Oriented Public Policy for Nature Recovery. Nature Sustainability.
We conduct an expert workshop to identify policies for delivering nature recovery in England and perceptions of their feasibility, showing an inverse correlation between experts’ perceptions of policies’ impact at delivering nature recovery, and their feasibility. We then explore how these policies relate to the policy toolkit applied in mission-oriented strategy and demonstrate how missions-thinking can be applied to nature recovery. Many policies proposed fall within the conventional mission-oriented policy toolkit (clearly defining the mission, policy coordination, strategic public procurement, public investment in fundamental innovation and public goods, conditional financing, public engagement).
Consultation response: a biodiversity metric for Scotland’s planning system
This response highlights how a biodiversity metric could support Scotland’s unique habitats and nature. It brings together evidence from the application of a statutory biodiversity metric in England to recommend a revised approach for a Scottish context. It draws on evidence from across the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery’s research community.
Rampling, E., zu Ermgassen, S., Hawkins, I., & Bull, J. W. (2023). Improving the ecological outcomes of compensatory conservation by addressing governance gaps: a case study of Biodiversity Net Gain in England. Conservation Biology.
Biodiversity compensation policies have emerged around the world to address the ecological harms of infrastructure expansion, but they have historically experienced weak compliance. The English government is introducing a requirement that all new infrastructure developments demonstrate they achieve a Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG). Previous research has highlighted governance gaps that risk undermining the policy’s ecological outcomes, as well as exploring the risks caused by fundamental capacity constraints in regulators, but the magnitude of their effects on the policy’s potential impacts on biodiversity remains unexplored. We collated BNG information from all new major developments across six early adopter councils from 2020-2022. We quantified the proportion of the biodiversity outcomes promised under BNG which are at risk of non-compliance, explored the variation in strategies that developments use to meet their biodiversity liabilities, and quantified the occurrence of simple errors in the biodiversity metric calculations submitted by project proponents.
zu Ermgassen, S. O. S. E., Marsh, S., Ryland, K., Church, E., Marsh, R., Bull, J. W. (2021). Exploring the ecological outcomes of mandatory biodiversity net gain using evidence from early-adopter jurisdictions in England. Conservation Letters. .
Net outcome-type biodiversity policies are proliferating globally as perceived mechanisms to reconcile economic development and conservation objectives. The UK government’s Environment Bill will mandate that most new developments in England demonstrate that they deliver a biodiversity net gain (BNG) to receive planning permission, representing the most wide-ranging net outcome type policy globally. However, as with many nascent net-outcome policies, the likely outcomes of mandatory BNG have not been explored empirically. We assemble all BNG assessments (accounting for ∼6% of England’s annual housebuilding and other infrastructure) submitted from January 2020 to February 2021 in six early-adopter councils who are implementing mandatory no net loss or BNG requirements in advance of the national adoption of mandatory BNG, and analyze the aggregate habitat changes proposed
Victoria F. Griffiths, Joseph W. Bull, Julia Baker, Mark Infield, Dilys Roe, Dianah Nalwanga, Achilles Byaruhanga, E.J. Milner-Gulland (2020). Incorporating local nature-based cultural values into biodiversity No Net Loss strategies. World Development.
Achieving “No Net Loss” (NNL) of nature from a development typically requires projects to follow a ‘mitigation hierarchy’, by which biodiversity losses are first avoided wherever possible, then minimised or remediated, and finally any residual impacts offset by conservation activities elsewhere. Biodiversity NNL can significantly affect people, including their cultural values. However, empirical research is lacking on how to incorporate impacts on cultural values of nature into NNL strategies. We use the Bujagali and Isimba Hydropower Projects and Kalagala Offset in Uganda as a case study to explore local people’s perceptions of the importance of cultural heritage to their wellbeing, how the developments affected their cultural heritage, and how these perceived impacts could be incorporated into NNL strategies. We sampled six villages experiencing different levels of hydropower development along the Victoria Nile River. Many river features, particularly rapids and waterfalls, are important cultural sites, associated with spirits and are worshipped by local communities. Spiritual beliefs, rituals and ceremonies, nature, and how cultural heritage is changing were frequently mentioned when respondents described cultural heritage. People perceived cultural heritage to be an important component of their wellbeing, but its importance differed between villages and socio-demographic groups
Griffiths, V.F., Bull, J.W., Baker, J. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2018). No net loss for people and biodiversity. Conservation Biology.
Badly planned offsets can exacerbate poverty, and development and offset impacts can vary across spatial-temporal scales and by location, gender, and livelihood. We conceptualize the no-worse-off principle in the context of NNL of biodiversity, by exploring for whom and how the principle can be achieved.
BULL, J.W., GORDON, A., LAW, E.A., SUTTLE, K.B. and MILNER-GULLAND, E.J (2016). Importance of Baseline Specification in Evaluating Conservation Interventions and Achieving No Net Loss of Biodiversity. Conservation Biology.
When setting objectives for conservation activities, or judging their efficacy after implementation, an appropriate frame of reference against which evaluation is made should be specified. We developed 2 models to investigate the implications of setting different frames of reference in regions subject to various biodiversity trends and anthropogenic impacts.
Bull JW, Suttle KB, Gordon A, Singh NJ, Milner-Gulland EJ. (2016). Biodiversity offsets in theory and practice. Oryx. .
This review of biodiversity offsetting evaluates implementation to date and synthesizes outstanding theoretical and practical problems.
SMITH, A.CA., BAKER, J.B, BERRY, P.M.A, BUTTERWORTH, T.C, CHAPMAN, A.E, HARLE, T. E, HEAVER, M.F, HÖLZINGER, O.C, HOWARD, BG., NORTON, L.R.H, RICE, P. E, SCOTT, A. I, THOMPSON, A E., WARBURTON, C E. AND WEBB, J E (2021). The Environmental Benefits from Nature Tool – Beta Test Version. Access to Evidence.
The Environmental Benefits from Nature tool is designed to work alongside Biodiversity metric 3.0 and provide developers, planners and other interested parties with a means of enabling wider benefits for people and nature from biodiversity net gain.
