Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets and BBOP

If you enter “bio­di­ver­sity off­sets” in Google the first results that you obtain are from the Busi­ness and Bio­di­ver­sity Off­set Pro­gram (BBOP). The BBOP plat­form (pro­nounced “bee­bop”) is in place since 2004 and has recently cel­e­brated its 10th anniver­sary. It has engaged busi­ness, NGOs, admin­is­tra­tion and acad­e­mia in devel­op­ing qual­ity stan­dards and pilots for bio­di­ver­sity off­sets worldwide.

It is always worth to check the web­site at http://bbop.forest-trends.org/pages/biodiversity_offsets and espe­cially the library sec­tion at http://bbop.forest-trends.org/documents/.

This is what BBOP says about themselves:

The Busi­ness and Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Pro­gramme (BBOP) is a col­lab­o­ra­tionof more than 75 lead­ing orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als includ­ing com­pa­nies, finan­cial insti­tu­tions, gov­ern­ment agen­cies and civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions, who are mem­bers of its Advi­sory Group.  Together, the mem­bers are test­ing and devel­op­ing best prac­tice on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets and con­ser­va­tion bank­ing worldwide.

The BBOP part­ners wish to show, through expe­ri­ence in a range of indus­try sec­tors, that bio­di­ver­sity off­sets can help achieve sig­nif­i­cantly more, bet­ter and more cost-effective con­ser­va­tion out­comes than nor­mally occurs in infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment.   The BBOP part­ners believe that demon­strat­ing no net loss of bio­di­ver­sity can help com­pa­nies secure their license to oper­ate, bet­ter man­age their costs and lia­bil­i­ties, and improve out­comes for affected communities.

We have devel­oped a set of prin­ci­ples and method­olo­gies informed by the on-the-ground expe­ri­ences of our busi­ness part­ners to help devel­op­ers demon­strate no net loss of bio­di­ver­sity.  In Jan­u­ary 2012 BBOP released its Stan­dard on Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets which can be used by com­pa­nies and audi­tors to assess risk and deter­mine whether an off­set has been designed and sub­se­quently imple­mented in accor­dance with inter­na­tional best prac­tice, as described in the BBOP Principles.

BBOP’s goals include:

• To pro­vide a global forum for col­lec­tive learn­ing, the dis­sem­i­na­tion of best prac­tice on the appli­ca­tion of the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy, includ­ing bio­di­ver­sity off­sets, and the shar­ing of experience.
• To assist devel­op­ers in fol­low­ing the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy, includ­ing design­ing and imple­ment­ing off­sets that pro­duce mea­sur­able con­ser­va­tion out­comes in the widest range of coun­tries and sec­tors possible.
• To improve bio­di­ver­sity off­set meth­ods informed by prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence and research.
• To pro­mote devel­op­ment and adop­tion of bio­di­ver­sity off­set stan­dards and meth­ods for ver­i­fi­ca­tion.

 In our cur­rent phase of work we aim to: refine the Stan­dard on Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets based on feed­back from prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence; estab­lish work towards a gov­er­nance model for the Stan­dard; and coor­di­nate a “Com­mu­nity of Prac­tice”, enabling indi­vid­u­als around the world (beyond BBOP mem­bers) to learn from each oth­ers’ expe­ri­ence with bio­di­ver­sity off­sets, share ideas and expe­ri­ence, and access train­ing through webi­nars and con­fer­ences.