Roundtable Discussion – How Can We Fund Biodiversity on Farms?

Thursday, December 4, as part of the BIO-CAPITAL project, Carbone 4 participated in a roundtable discussion organized by Agri Sud-Ouest Innovation to share its expertise on the design and implementation of biodiversity certification programs.

Key takeaways:

• It is crucial to involve the stakeholders who will be at the heart of these initiatives from the design phase onward:
  • Supply side: project leaders (farmers, foresters, natural park managers, or natural area conservation organizations)
  • On the demand side: project funders (companies)
  • Between supply and demand: local public entities (regions/local governments)
• The challenge is to strike the right balance between the integrity of the systems (to prevent fraud and abuse) and efficiency (to avoid cumbersome, costly administrative procedures that discourage action).
• These initiatives can be deployed on a large scale and over the long term only if they are supported by profitable and sustainable business models for project leaders.

BIO-CAPITAL, in a nutshell:

• A Horizon research project: funded by the European Commission, involving more than 20 public and private organizations, from 2024 to 2027
• The overarching goal of the project: to mobilize investment for the protection and restoration of biodiversity by developing innovative financing mechanisms and leveraging advanced geospatial data
• Carbone 4’s role in this project: to collaboratively develop and implement biodiversity certification schemes in five pilot countries, each with distinct contexts—alpine forests in Austria, arable land in France and Romania, wetlands in the United Kingdom, and permanent grasslands in Slovenia. Challenge accepted!

More information here: https://bio-capital.eu/