As the push to incorporate biodiversity into economic decisions continues, there’s a need to have standardised ways for how we measure it. This need is implicit in the term ‘NetGain’ – to have an overall net gain in biodiversity, we need to have compensated for losses somewhere with equivalent gains elsewhere, which means we need to have measured consistently. Ideas of ‘NetGain’ have evolved from discussions about carbon emissions (E.g. reaching net zero), but biodiversity is not like CO2: it is many things, valuable for many reasons, and measurable in many ways. In this talk, I’ll explore recent efforts by a range of biodiversity finance initiatives (e.g. Scotland’s emerging Ecosystem Restoration Code, England’s Biodiversity Net Gain scheme, US Stream Crediting Systems, and various recent Biodiversity Credit operators) to quantify biodiversity, and discuss the challenges we face in attempting this goal.
About the NETGAIN Seminar Series
This monthly seminar series is designed to support the next generation of interdisciplinary researchers by providing NETGAIN PhD students with perspectives from ecology, economics, social science, law, and environmental policy. The series introduces the diverse disciplinary lenses needed to understand and shape Net Gain frameworks and emerging nature markets.
While aimed primarily at NETGAIN PhD students, the seminars are equally valuable to academics, practitioners, policymakers, and industry partners working at the interface of nature recovery, land-use planning, carbon and biodiversity markets, and environmental governance.
The seminar series also plays a complementary role in the development of the NETGAIN eBook - a living, multidisciplinary repository that responds to rapid advances in nature-positive policy, practice, and research. The seminars contribute to this larger initiative by exposing students and attendees to foundational concepts, real-world challenges, and cutting-edge methods that are essential for developing socially equitable, ecologically robust, and economically sound Net Gain approaches.