Biodiversity Offsets
Effective Design and Implementation

This report examines the key design and implementation features that need to be considered to ensure that biodiversity offset programmes are environmentally effective, economically efficient, and distributionally equitable. Biodiversity offsets are being increasingly used in a wide range of sectors as a mechanism to help compensate for the adverse effects caused by development projects in a variety of ecosystems. In this report, insights and lessons learned are drawn from more than 40 case studies from around the world, with an additional 3 in-depth country case studies from the United States, Germany and Mexico.
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Executive summary
Current and projected trends in global biodiversity suggest further decline under business-as-usual scenarios. It is widely acknowledged that renewed efforts are needed to halt and reverse this trend. Governments must seek to reinforce and scale up instruments for biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, and to make existing instruments more environmentally and cost effective. One instrument that has recently been receiving increasing attention from policy makers and business alike is biodiversity offsets.
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