Biodiversity Certificates
Issues
Description
Take advantage of our team's expertise
Discuss your challenges, priorities, and the right path forward for your organization with the Carbone 4 teams.
Issues
Discuss your challenges, priorities, and the right path forward for your organization with the Carbone 4 teams.
Our experts
Arthur Pivin
Biodiversity Expert for Carbone 4
Develop scientific methods to better guide biodiversity conservation efforts
1. Puzzling Biodiversity and Regional Contribution : Prioritize practices that promote biodiversity and organize their implementation at the regional level
2. Biocapital : Design and test biodiversity certificates aimed at financing the conservation and restoration of ecosystems
Current funding relies primarily on government initiatives and philanthropy, with the private sector’s contribution still limited. Given the scale of the need, businesses must do their part to achieve the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework—especially since their operations depend directly on nature.
To facilitate corporate financing for biodiversity, we must provide companies with credible frameworks for action—mechanisms that guarantee integrity and effectiveness—so they can confidently demonstrate their commitment. This is the goal of biodiversity certificate and credit mechanisms.
Project 1: Prioritize practices that promote biodiversity and organize their implementation at the regional level
Led by the National Museum of Natural History, this component aims to develop a method for identifying and prioritizing management or land-use practices that promote biodiversity within a given ecosystem. By engaging practitioners, ecologists, and naturalists through a participatory science approach, we can establish a biodiversity score for each practice and rank them according to their associated benefits.
An initial proof of concept was conducted in 2025 on two ecosystems—arable land and managed forests—in temperate Western Europe. The work is continuing in 2026.
Part 2: Local Tax
Led by Carbone 4, this initiative aims to establish a framework for implementing biodiversity certificates at the regional level in order to attract private funding for biodiversity conservation.
An 18-month pilot project began in February 2026 with the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Grand Est regions. It will result in the production of about ten open-access deliverables, presenting recommendations for implementing the mechanism (governance, operational protocol, standards for supply and demand, market rules, methods for measuring biodiversity gains, etc.).
Project 2: Design and pilot biodiversity certificates aimed at financing the conservation and restoration of ecosystems
Biocapital is a Horizon Europe research project led by the European Commission and bringing together some 20 public and private organizations.
The goal is to develop mechanisms for financing biodiversity, such as biodiversity certificates, whose value is based on measurable ecological benefits that are tracked and verified using geospatial data.
Carbone 4 is responsible here for jointly developing a biodiversity certification mechanism with local partners, which will be tested through five pilot projects in various ecosystems: alpine forests in Austria and Italy, arable land in France and Romania, wetlands in the United Kingdom, and permanent grasslands in Slovenia.
The lessons learned from these pilot projects will inform recommendations to the European Commission on how to structure a future market for biodiversity certificates, in line with the European roadmap on nature credits launched in July 2025.
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