Biodiversity offsetting
What is it?
Biodiversity offsets are conservation activities designed to deliver biodiversity benefits in compensation for losses, in a measurable way. We think that biodiversity offsetting has the potential to deliver planning policy requirements for compensation for biodiversity loss in a more effective way.
Latest news
2 April 2012: The biodiversity offsetting pilots have now started, and will run for two years, until April 2014. Below you can find:
- further information about the pilot areas
- further information about the complementary projects that will feed in to the evaluation of biodiversity offsetting
- guidance and information for those who’d like to use the biodiversity offsetting approach
- background
Current situation and background
We announced in the Natural Environment White Paper that we would work with local planning authorities and their partners to test biodiversity offsetting in a number of pilot areas over 2 years, starting in April 2012. The information gathered during this time will allow us to understand more about its potential, and to make decisions about how we should use offsetting in the future. We will be working with 6 pilot areas to test the biodiversity offsetting approach.
More information
Key publications and documents
- Guidance for offset providers
- Guidance for developers that would like to use offsetting
- Appendix 1 to the Guidance for offset providers and developers – Distinctiveness Bands for the Biodiversity Offsetting Pilot
- An updated technical paper on the metric being used in the biodiversity offsetting pilot
- Information for local authorities participating in the pilot
- The Guiding Principles we have used in our approach to biodiversity offsetting (PDF 180KB)
- Discussion material on biodiversity offsetting (PDF 570KB) from December 2010, and a summary of comments received on the discussion material and how we have responded to these (PDF 230KB)
- Summary of a research project on planning policy and biodiversity offsetting (PDF 100KB)
- The biodiversity offsetting Options Impact Assessment (PDF 1MB), and a summary of this assessment (PDF 210KB)
- A detailed technical report on costing potential actions to offset the impact of development on biodiversity, referred to in the impact assessment (PDF 630KB) and Annexes (PDF 1MB). Produced by GHK in association with eftec (March 2011)
- Scoping study for the design and use of biodiversity offsets in an English Context (PDF 1MB). Compiled by Jo Treweek (Treweek Environmental Constultants), April 2009
Useful links
Contact us
If you have any queries related to biodiversity offsetting, please email us at bio.offsets@defra.gsi.gov.uk