Carbon credits focus specifically on reducing greenhouse gas emissions or sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They represent the reduction or removal of a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases to offset emissions elsewhere.

Biodiversity credits are designed to quantify and value the conservation outcomes related to biodiversity. They aim to generate funding for activities that protect, enhance, or restore biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Community Engagement: EarthAcre ensures the active involvement and consultation with local communities in the project development. Meaningful engagement allows communities to voice their concerns, needs, and aspirations, helping shape projects that align with their interests while avoiding adverse impacts.

Recognition of traditional knowledge and practices: EarthAcre recognizes the value of IPLCs; traditional knowledge and practices in biodiversity conservation and sustainable resource management. It ensures that their knowledge is respected, protected, and incorporated into biodiversity credit projects where appropriate.

Free Prior Informed Consent: The right to “Free Prior and Informed Consent” (FPIC) in decisions that affect them is a cornerstone of EarthAcre’s framework for engagement with local communities. EarthAcre works closely with affected indigenous peoples and local communities in an engagement process that is characterized as :

(i) A process free from coercion and intimidation in any form (Free)

(ii) Taking place before decisions that may affect Indigenous Peoples are made (Prior)

(iii) In a manner and language that is accessible to affected Indigenous Peoples, providing full information about both risks and opportunities (Informed); and

(iv) Through a collective decision made by rights-holders through their own decision-making mechanisms. If consent is given, it can later be withdrawn. (Consent)

Fair benefit-sharing: EarthAcre provides direct cash transfers to smallholder landowners, enabling them to invest in the value of their land and biodiversity practices. This ensures that the economic benefits generated through the sale of its biodiversity credit to reach local communities in an equitable manner.

Monitoring and compliance: To maintain accountability, EarthAcre continuously monitors and evaluates its projects, as well as key socio-economic indicators to track funding impact. This helps ensure that benefits are realized and that there are no unintended negative consequences for marginalized communities.

Transparency and accountability: Transparent governance structures and decision-making processes are crucial to building trust and ensuring that the interests of marginalized communities are considered and protected.

Additionality refers to the concept that the conservation or emission reduction actions undertaken to generate credits would not have occurred in the absence of the credit system. It ensures that the credits represent a genuine additional benefit beyond business-as-usual activities. To address additionality, Earth Acre employs:

• Clear and credible baseline that represents the expected environmental impact or emissions level without the credit-generating project or activity.

• Specific additionality criteria and methodology to determine whether the project goes beyond what would have happened without the credit scheme. This often involves comparing the project's environmental benefits or emissions reductions against a defined reference scenario.

• Third-party verification to ensure that projects meet the additionality requirements and are not merely claiming credits for existing practices.

Permanence refers to the durability and long-term maintenance of the environmental benefits achieved through credits. It addresses the risk of reversal or loss of the positive impact over time. To address permanence, EarthAcre employs:

• Risk mitigation plan to minimize the risk of reversals, such as ensuring long-term management plans, conservation easements, legal agreements, or financial instruments to support the continued protection or maintenance of the credited benefits.

• A buffer pool of additional credits to compensate for any potential losses or reversals, ensuring a net positive outcome even in the event of partial or temporary loss.

Leakage occurs when activities intended to generate credits result in unintended negative impacts elsewhere or fail to address the root causes of the problem effectively. To address leakage, EarthAcre undertakes:

• Comprehensive assessments of the potential indirect impacts of the credit-generating activities, considering factors like displacement effects, indirect land-use changes, or shifting environmental pressures.

• Robust monitoring and reporting systems to track the effectiveness of the credit-generating activities and identify any unintended negative consequences.

• Safeguards to prevent or mitigate leakage, such as implementing strict land-use planning, ensuring that displaced activities are addressed appropriately, or addressing potential indirect impacts through complementary interventions.

• Community impact tracking also helps avoid any displacement of economic activity that could have negative environmental consequences .

“Biodiversity offset schemes are driven by negative impacts on biodiversity in one location that can be ‘offset’ or compensated for by purchasing biodiversity units, which are intended to represent an equivalent positive impact on biodiversity in another location.

By contrast, biodiversity credit schemes are not intended to facilitate the ‘offsetting’ of negative impacts on biodiversity. Rather, they are intended to finance ‘real’ gains for biodiversity that are not linked to negative impacts in another location” (NatureFinance, 2023).

While the biodiversity credit market is an emerging concept, the field of biodiversity offsetting, which is related to biodiversity credits, gained prominence in the 1980s as a response to the growing recognition of environmental impacts of economic activities. Biodiversity offsetting is a practice where economic activities that cause biodiversity loss compensate for it by investing in conservation projects elsewhere. The regulations and standards surrounding biodiversity offsetting can influence the biodiversity credit market to some extent. Some examples are: No net Loss/net gain, mitigation hierarchy, biodiversity offsetting standards, jurisdiction-specific regulations.

Source: NatureFinance, “Biodiversity Credit Markets: The role of law, regulation and policy” (2023)

Earth Acre’s biodiversity credits are part of the voluntary market, which currently does not have regulations or standards at the global level, but there is a growing number of publications that seek to provide guidelines and best practices for high-performance biodiversity credits. Biodiversity credits have emerged in recent years as part of a larger movement towards the development of market-based mechanisms to help deliver on the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework and the Paris Agreement.

While there is currently an absence of international governance in the voluntary biodiversity credit markets, EarthAcre is committed to leading the market in the supply of high-integrity biodiversity credits that offer nature positive outcomes.

EarthAcre is a member of the Biodiversity Credit Alliance and other forums to support market development efforts and find innovative solutions to the following core challenges identified by Carbon4 & NatureFinance (2023) in its report on “Harnessing Biodiversity Credits for People and Planet:”

• Providing credible, timely, and affordable measurement and monitoring of the state, improvement, and/or maintenance of biodiversity

• Scaling sustained and high-integrity demand for credits and associated financing

• Ensuring sufficient high-integrity supply of credits that offer nature positive outcomes

• Securing adequate price and equitable distribution of rewards to project developers, sovereigns and Indigenous Peoples and local communities

• Establishing robust governance and broader, transparent institutional arrangements

Emerging legislation on corporate nature reporting aims to address the need for businesses to account for their impact on the natural environment (See for instance France, UK, the Netherlands, Singapore, EU, Australia). Such legislation focuses on ensuring that companies disclose relevant information regarding their interactions with nature and biodiversity in their financial and sustainability reports. The specific requirements of the legislation vary depending on the jurisdiction, but the overall objectives include increasing transparency, accountability, and sustainable practices.

Biodiversity credits can play a role within corporate Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting standards as they contribute to the environmental aspect of ESG. ESG reporting frameworks provide a structure for companies to disclose their sustainability performance and impacts. While the integration of biodiversity credits within ESG reporting frameworks may vary, here's how they generally fit:

• Environmental Impact: Biodiversity credits can be reported as part of a company's environmental impact assessment. They can demonstrate the company's efforts to mitigate biodiversity loss, preserve habitats, or restore ecosystems. This aligns with the environmental pillar of ESG reporting, which focuses on aspects like climate change, resource conservation, and ecological stewardship.

• Natural Capital Valuation: Biodiversity credits contribute to the valuation of natural capital, which involves assessing and quantifying the economic value of ecosystems, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. Companies can report on the incorporation of biodiversity credits within their natural capital assessments, highlighting their recognition of the importance of biodiversity in their business operations.

• Sustainability Goals and Targets: Biodiversity credits can be linked to a company's sustainability goals and targets. By setting goals to purchase or invest in biodiversity credits, companies can demonstrate their commitment to biodiversity conservation and sustainable practices (e.g. SDG #15. Life on Land). Progress toward these goals can be reported as part of the company's sustainability performance.

• Reporting Framework Alignment: ESG reporting standards, such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities: or Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), may include specific indicators or guidelines related to biodiversity and ecosystem impacts. Companies can align their biodiversity credit reporting with these frameworks to ensure consistency and comparability in their ESG reporting practices.

It's important to note that the integration of biodiversity credits within ESG reporting is still evolving, and the specific requirements and guidelines may vary among different reporting frameworks and jurisdictions. Companies should consider the relevant reporting standards applicable to their industry and region to ensure accurate and comprehensive reporting of their biodiversity credit activities within their overall ESG disclosures.

There are concerns regarding the sale of biodiversity credits by project developers that apply weak methodologies or when only aspects of nature that provide short-term economic returns are valued. Another concern is that biodiversity credits or certificates are being issued on a per-project basis, irrespective of the actual biodiversity gains that have been made. This situation raises the potential for corporate greenwashing, where companies make misleading claims about their environmental responsibility to enhance their public image without adequately addressing the underlying issues.

To mitigate these risks, it is crucial to establish transparent and robust methodologies for assessing and valuing biodiversity. This is why EarthAcre is committed to generating certificates as a result of measured and verified per-unit restoration and/or conservation benefits in biodiversity. While there are continued debates on what constitutes a "unit" of biodiversity, the general consensus is that methodologies should use a holistic, robust, standardised, and continuously updated metric. EarthAcre’s methodology is a holistic metric developed in partnership with the Harvard University Davies Lab that considers long-term ecological impacts, ecosystem services, and the preservation of biodiversity hotspots. An overview of the methodology is available here. Additionally, independent verification and monitoring ensures the credibility and integrity of biodiversity credit transactions.

EarthAcre's biodiversity credits are priced on a per-acre basis for its two products : EarthAcre Restore and EarthAcre Sustain.

Biodiversity credit markets (or nature markets) come in two main forms: compliance and voluntary markets. On the compliance front, an increasing number of countries are implementing localised biodiversity credit compliance markets, so far with no secondary (national or international) trading enabled. However, voluntary carbon credit markets, some of which incorporate biodiversity credits, make secondary trading possible. The emergence of a voluntary biodiversity credit market is signaling a move towards secondary trading in both biodiversity financial assets (insetting) and biodiversity-linked carbon offsets.

There are potential risks in encouraging or secondary trading in markets that are not sufficiently mature to secure agreed minimum performance standards.

EarthAcre is committed to addressing these risks, prior to enabling the trading of biodiversity credits, in order to ensure high-quality, equitable, nature-positive outcomes in its products.

EarthAcre is currently accepting requests to purchase biodiversity credits. For more information contact Mark Tracy

At EarthAcre, our primary goal is to promote and incentivize biodiversity improvement and maintenance over time through the sale of biodiversity credits. We work diligently with landowners and communities to implement conservation and restoration projects that have a positive impact on biodiversity. However, we acknowledge that certain events beyond our control, such as extreme weather events, natural disasters, or conflicts like war, may influence the outcomes of these projects and temporarily reduce biodiversity levels. While these occurrences are unpredictable, we strive to build resilient ecosystems that can withstand and recover from such disturbances.

To address these uncertainties and ensure our buyers' confidence in their investment, we have implemented a percentage buffer system. This buffer serves as insurance against potential setbacks in biodiversity levels. For example, with a 20% buffer, if the expected biodiversity improvement is not fully achieved due to unforeseen events, the credits' value will be adjusted to account for the actual outcomes. This ensures that buyers receive credits that accurately reflect the realized impact on biodiversity.

From an environmental justice perspective, our commitment extends beyond biodiversity conservation. We recognize the importance of supporting vulnerable communities that may be affected by environmental challenges. When buyers invest in EarthAcre biodiversity credits, they are not only contributing to ecological preservation but also helping uplift these communities through direct payments.

In the worst-case scenario, where biodiversity reduction occurs despite our best efforts, the buffer system provides a safety net for buyers. It enables them to be comforted by the knowledge that their payments have still made a positive difference by supporting environmental justice initiatives and community development.

At EarthAcre, transparency and accountability are paramount. We provide regular updates and reports on the progress of conservation and restoration efforts, ensuring that buyers are well-informed about the impact of their investment. By working together with both buyers and local communities, we strive to create a sustainable and equitable future for biodiversity and the well-being of all involved.

EarthAcre is currently a member of the Biodiversity Credits Alliance Forum and the World Climate Foundation. As a member of the Biodiversity Credits Alliance Forum, EarthAcre collaborates with like-minded organizations and experts in the field of biodiversity credits to advance the development and adoption of robust methodologies and standards.

EarthAcre is also affiliated with the World Climate Foundation, an organization focused on addressing climate change and promoting sustainable solutions. This affiliation highlights EarthAcre's commitment to addressing climate-related challenges and contributing to a more sustainable future.

Additionally, EarthAcre is actively seeking strategic partnerships with organizations that share our vision and goals. These partnerships could involve collaborations on biodiversity conservation, sustainability initiatives, or innovative approaches to environmental stewardship.