Green groups uneasy as EU bets on market to drive nature restoration

Euractiv

5 days ago

The European Commission believes a market for nature credits will unlock private financing to fund ecosystem restoration and biodiversity protection, but critics are sounding the alarm over what they fear may become another greenwashing tool.
Months after Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen floated the idea of a cash-for-nature scheme, the EU executive has developed the idea further with the publication of a nature credits roadmap.
'This not about turning nature into a commodity, but about recognising and rewarding actions that restore and sustain nature," environment commissioner Jessika Roswall told reporters on Monday.
"Nature credits are emerging as a promising tool to change how we value nature,' she said.
The Commission envisages a scheme to reward farmers and landowners for environmental actions and sustainable management that goes beyond legal obligations, thus reconciling the economics of farming and forestry with nature preservation.
According to the roadmap, a nature credit is 'a unit that represents a nature-positive outcome, derived from a certified and independently verified action'.
The fungible units would be generated in two steps. A given action, such as the restoration of drained wetland, must first pass a 'high-quality' standards test and be certified. The project must then be monitored, with the issuance of nature credits linked to demonstrable results.
'[W]e face a €37 billion annual gap in biodiversity financing across the EU. To close it, we must unlock private finance to complement public support,' Roswall said.
At a time when there is growing awareness that biodiversity loss leads to financial and economic risks – with 75% of European businesses dependent in some way on ecosystem services – the new market-based tool is presented as complementary to public funding.
With the finance gap estimated globally at $200 billion a year until the end of the decade, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity calls for increased and diversified flows of money into nature restoration. Greenwashing risks To lay the groundwork for a future EU nature credits market, the Commission plans to launch an expert group tasked with developing initial criteria and methodologies over the coming year. In parallel, an EU-wide pilot project is slated to run from 2025 to 2027, after the Commission tested the concept in two national pilot projects in Estonia and France.
'To avoid greenwashing is key,' Roswall said, adding that it was 'crucial that we can trust investments...in nature'.
But warnings have already emerged about a lack of demand for nature credits, even before the scheme gets off the ground.
The Commission's efforts to avoid accusations of greenwashing – which have previously dogged the market for carbon credits used to outsource climate action – have not staved off criticism that it is promoting a false, possible even destructive, solution.
'It is absurd that discussions around nature finance are relying on a pilot that increases environmental destruction,' said Siim Kuresoo, a campaigner with the forest protection group Fern.
Specifically, the NGO claims that one of the nature credits pilot projects, in Estonia, has led to 27 hectares of forest being clear-cut, some of it in ecologically sensitive areas.
Roswall declined to answer when asked by Euractiv whether she was aware of or acknowledged this criticism.
'Nature credits are a cover for inaction, a greenwashing shortcut that allows corporations to keep destroying nature as long as they pay for it," said Clara Bourgin, a nature campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe.
"This is not the time for market schemes that benefit only a few while putting nature at risk," Bourgin said.
(rh, aw)