High-Level Principles to Guide the Biodiversity Credit Market
Biodiversity is essential for existence on this planet. It is needed for everything from the stability of food and water systems to the emotional and mental well-being benefits that nature can bring. However, nature is being lost at unprecedented rates. This white paper presents a set of high-level principles to help ensure biodiversity credits drive positive benefits to people, biodiversity, climate and collective well-being.
Biodiversity is essential for existence on this planet. It is needed for everything from the stability of food and water systems to the emotional and mental well-being benefits that nature can bring. However, nature is being lost at unprecedented rates. This white paper presents a set of high-level principles to help ensure biodiversity credits drive positive benefits to people, biodiversity, climate and collective well-being.
In December 2022, 196 parties committed to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 when they signed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). The GBF identified nature markets and biodiversity credits as a tool that could help close the biodiversity finance gap.
A result of a shared working group from the World Economic Forum, the Biodiversity Credit Alliance and the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits, the principles outlined in the paper offer guidelines for the entire biodiversity credit market, helping biodiversity credit schemes to set high integrity standards, guide project developers to generate high-quality biodiversity credits and enable buyers to make informed choices.