Tories to investigate bio-credit scheme

There is already a price on carbon emission, but under new Conservative proposals businesses may soon have to account for the cost of biodiversity loss.

The plan is being put forward by the new shadow environment secretary Nick Herbert, and is modelled on similar bio-credit or bio-banking schemes in the US, Australia and Malaysia, where firms wishing to develop a site have to compensate for any resulting biodiversity loss by investing in projects to protect wildlife at another location.

The schemes have created markets worth tens of millions of pounds and, according to Herbert, have helped address biodiversity loss by placing an economic value on environmental resources.

Speaking in an interview with The Guardian, Herbert downplayed fears that putting a financial value on biodiversity could make it easier for developers to exploit wildlife habitats, safe in the knowledge that they simply have to make a financial contribution to alternative projects.

"We do not want this to be a substitute for environmental, landscape or habitat protection," he said. "What we have in mind are schemes that are likely to go ahead anyway. There is, whether we like it or not, going to be development going forward, and the risk is that will mean further biodiversity loss. The question is how can we prevent that? We should, therefore, start looking at a system for not just preventing biodiversity loss but also enhancing it."

A spokeswoman for the party told BusinessGreen.com that the plan had not yet been formally adopted as Conservative policy, but had secured early support from a number of green groups.

She added that the Conservatives were now looking to undertake more detailed assessments on existing schemes in the US and Australia, as well as consultations with green groups on whether or not such a scheme in the UK would be voluntary and how financial valuations could be attached to different habitats.

"It is very much in its infancy, but it looks like an interesting approach that addresses the whole of the bioversity issue and does not take piecemeal efforts," she said.