Connecting Nature Finance: Understanding biodiversity credits and their role in a nature-positive future

GINGR and the Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI) hosted Connecting Nature Finance: Understanding biodiversity credits and their role in a Nature-Positive future on 7 October 2025 to explore the emerging field of biodiversity credits and their potential to channel private sector investment into conservation and restoration.

During this first session of Connecting Energies 2025: Civil Society Webinar Series, participants learnt how biodiversity credits are generated, traded and applied in practice, as well as the distinction between credits and offsets, challenges in scaling, and how these tools could link to wider policy frameworks, such as biodiversity net gain strategies or nature restoration laws. Importantly, the discussion also provided room to address key obstacles such as greenwashing concerns, verification gaps and the need for a common measurement framework.

With three speakers from the European Commission, the UK and Australia, we explored the EU’s ‘Roadmap towards Nature Credits’, and learnt from case studies of existing nature credit schemes, including aspects such as governance structures, monitoring requirements and opportunities for NGO engagement. Furthermore, we considered the potential implications of a nascent biodiversity credit market for grid and renewable energy infrastructure planning.

Speakers

• Dr Tim Coles OBE, Director and CEO, rePlanet, and Chair, Operation Wallacea
  • Tim presented insights from the UK’s experience with nature credits and the methodological underpinnings of the market, drawing on his role advising the UK Biodiversity Net Gain Policy. He went on to highlight the need for robust, open-source and universally applicable metrics to ensure comparability between schemes, emphasising the role of independent verification through the Biodiversity Futures Initiative. Tim also discussed the Wallacea Trust’s basket of metrics approach and explained how weighted species scoring and relative abundance measures could better capture ecological value, while balancing comprehensiveness with cost efficiency.
  • Presentation: Measuring and Reporting Biodiversity
• Laura Waterford, Executive Director, Pollination
  • Laura presented biodiversity credit markets from around the world and outlined international nature-positive corporate strategies. She explained the different types of voluntary and compliance markets, as well as their links with carbon markets. Laura also examined the business case for investing in biodiversity credits, including their role in mitigating nature-related risks and meeting corporate biodiversity targets. She acknowledged the ongoing controversies in the field, calling for transparency, integrity and better safeguards against greenwashing. Importantly, she highlighted opportunities for developers to use biodiversity credits within compliance schemes, particularly where carbon projects could transition into biodiversity-focused outcomes.
  • Presentation: Biodiversity Markets
• Hadrien Michel, Policy Officer – Biodiversity Finance, European Commission
  • Hadrien presented the EU Commission’s Roadmap towards Nature Credits and the immediate actions to trigger, setting out the European approach to biodiversity financing. He underlined the need for private investment to complement public funding and outlined business incentives such as risk management, reputation gains and regulatory compliance. Hadrien also emphasised the importance of developing robust and practical biodiversity metrics to ensure credibility, while acknowledging barriers such as upfront costs and the proliferation of fragmented schemes. He stressed that creating common standards would be essential for the EU to move towards a functioning nature credit market.
  • Presentation: EU Roadmap towards Nature Credits

The session highlighted both the promise and the complexity of biodiversity credits as a tool for channelling private sector investment into nature-positive action. Speakers agreed that integrity, transparency and robust measurement frameworks were critical for credibility and scalability. The discussion underscored the potential role of biodiversity credits in complementing carbon markets, while also pointing to the challenges of additionality, permanence and scheme comparability. Overall, the webinar provided a clear sense of both the opportunities and the hurdles ahead, leaving participants with a deeper understanding of how biodiversity credits might contribute to conservation, restoration and sustainable infrastructure development.