Biodiversity credits are emerging alongside carbon. Here's how nature-based solutions stack biodiversity, water, and car...
Corporate buyers paying a premium for Gold Standard or co-benefit-rich nature credits are, in part, buying something that doesn't yet have a standardised market price: biodiversity. The stacking of carbon, biodiversity, water quality, and community co-benefits onto single conservation projects is creating a new class of nature market. Ireland, with its degraded but recoverable landscapes, is positioned in the middle of this.
Biodiversity credits are distinct instruments from carbon credits. They represent a unit of improvement (or maintenance) in ecological state — measured in species diversity, habitat quality, or equivalent biodiversity units (BDUs).
They are not yet a mature, liquid global market. Unlike carbon, there is no universal currency for biodiversity. One hectare of restored blanket bog in Mayo is not directly comparable to one hectare of restored mangrove in Indonesia on any single metric. The TNFD (Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures) and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (COP15, December 2022) are the governance scaffolding, but standardisation is still being worked out.
Several countries have mandatory biodiversity offsetting schemes:
Ireland has no mandatory biodiversity credit scheme, but the planning system includes ecological impact assessment requirements that are being tightened.
Premium-priced nature-based carbon credits derive much of their premium from co-benefits:
Gold Standard Verified Emission Reductions (GS VERs) require projects to demonstrate SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) contributions alongside emission reductions. Projects with verified contributions to SDG 6 (clean water), SDG 15 (life on land), and SDG 3 (health) command higher prices — typically 20–40% above non-co-benefit-certified equivalents.
Verra CCB (Climate, Community, Biodiversity) Standards certify projects for climate, community, and biodiversity co-benefits alongside VCS carbon credits. CCB certification costs additional project investment but raises credit value.
Plan Vivo is specifically designed for smallholder agroforestry and community forestry with embedded social co-benefits. Irish NGOs working in developing country projects have used Plan Vivo for certification of projects in sub-Saharan Africa.
The commercial logic: institutional buyers (large tech companies with complex sustainability programmes) prefer rich co-benefit portfolios because they deliver SDG reporting contributions, not just carbon accounting.
EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 commits member states to protecting 30% of land and sea areas, restoring degraded ecosystems, and halting biodiversity loss. The Nature Restoration Law (Regulation 2024/1991) sets binding restoration targets:
For Ireland, the peatland obligation alone represents a substantial land restoration programme. The Habitats Directive already designates many Irish peatlands as SAC (Special Area of Conservation) — these have existing legal protection. The new obligations extend to non-designated degraded habitats.
Restored raised bogs. Carbon sequestration, blanket bog habitat restoration for SAC qualifying interest species (Merlin, Golden Plover, Sphagnum), and water catchment quality improvement stack in a single restoration intervention. Bord na Móna's programme creates all three.
Riparian woodland. Native tree planting along Irish river corridors sequesters carbon, creates habitat for otter and kingfisher (Annex IV Habitats Directive species), reduces bank erosion, and improves water quality (shading reduces algal growth). The Woodland Carbon Code methodology credits this.
Coastal and estuarine habitats. Blue carbon (seagrass, saltmarsh, coastal woodland) is being explored on the Shannon Estuary and in Galway Bay. Carbon flux data for Irish coastal habitats is limited — EPA and university research programmes are active.
Hedgerows. Ireland has 700,000 km of hedgerow — more than any other European country per land area. Hedgerows are estimated to store 2–4 million tonnes CO₂e and support 60% of Irish farmland bird species. Hedgerow removal rates have declined under ACRES rules but were unsustainable in the 2000–2015 period.
The TNFD (Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures) published its final framework in September 2023. Like TCFD for climate, TNFD provides a structure for companies to assess, disclose, and manage nature-related risks and dependencies.
Irish companies with material land-use, water-use, or supply chains dependent on natural resources face TNFD disclosure expectations under CSRD's ESRS E4 (Biodiversity and Ecosystems standard). This covers:
Agri-food companies — a major Irish sector — have the highest nature dependency and exposure. Companies like Kerry Group, Glanbia, and Ornua are already engaged in TNFD-aligned disclosure work.
A viable Irish nature-based solution project might look like:
Credit output per hectare at commercial scale: €25–45/ha/year from carbon, with potential uplift of €15–30/ha/year if a nascent Irish biodiversity credit scheme develops.
The market infrastructure for the biodiversity uplift doesn't fully exist yet. But the underlying value does. Building projects now, before the standard is fully formed, positions Irish landowners and project developers at the front of a queue that will be crowded by 2028.
Michael English is a technology entrepreneur and writer focused on blockchain infrastructure, carbon markets, and enterprise technology. He co-founded IMPT (impt.io), a carbon credit tokenisation platform, and BMIC (bmic.ai). Based in Ireland.