- “They therefore complement, not duplicate carbon tools and fit naturally alongside common agricultural policy measures. Also cohesion, funding or other possible EU and other public funds. Now for supply side actors such as farmers and foresters, nature credits mean new voluntary income streams that reward the ecosystem services they already provide, such as soil care, pollination, water retention or flood prevention. By valuing these contributions, credits help to diversify rural incomes, strengthen cooperatives and reduce dependence on single commodities. They can recognise the maintenance of high nature value features or practices that also lower input costs and stabilise yields. For rural areas, the benefits go beyond the individual farms because when local restoration areas are certified and financed, they attract investment into other services such as advisory services, nurseries or also equipment and rural SMEs. So this strengthens the bioeconomy and supports generational renewal by making land stewardship a viable business model and not a sacrifice for agri food companies. Nature credits provide a structured way to co-invest with their suppliers in resilient landscapes. In practice, food processors, retailers or cooperatives could use credits to support suppliers adopting biodiversity friendly practices within their value chains, sharing both risk and reward. So nature credits can actually come along along the value chain from the farmer's work up to the processing of of the products for financial institutions and insurers. Nature credits act as a risk management and transparency tool. Credits offer measurable and verifiable channel for insurance and banks to invest in nature positive assets that lower long term exposure to physical and transition risks, and they also respond to growing market expectations.”
EU support for bioeconomic applications
- “So, together with the working Group, we intend to work on developing indicators, baselines and methods suitable for Agriculture and forestry, and we will explore public private instruments to de-risk early projects and guarantee fair access also for smallholders. At each step, the guiding principles remain clear. We want to build trust, high integrity, simplicity and complementarity with public finance. Based on these steps, we will then assess a bit down the road of the roadmap whether further EU level measures are needed and whether there's an EU added value to scale up nature credit markets. The aim is to move forward gradually and with legitimacy, transparency and broad support. Done this way, nature credits can strengthen food security, enhance rural competitiveness and make European agriculture more resilient to the shocks of climate change by ensuring that those who care for the land are fairly rewarded for the public goods they provide. So once again, thank you very much for the opportunity and really looking forward to this process. And we're also very much looking forward to your views and contributions today. Thank you.”
Management of EU forests · Nature protection and restoration in the EU
- “I'm so sorry. I got very excited about this happy topic. So, um, at the moment the demand for nature credits is not that high yet, but there is quite some potential, and even a partial EU uptake of this new opportunity would help to narrow the estimated biodiversity funding gap that we have at the moment. So, in short, as I already mentioned, nature credits are designed to build bridges along the value chain between those who manage biodiversity and those who depend on it. And they aim to create a fairer, more resilient and more competitive rural economy. Now this is about the rationale and what could be possible. The question is how can we get there? And so just to stress again, the idea of the commission is to start a process where we collect and discuss and we work with an expert group that we're about to set up, which will have a balanced participation from farmers, foresters, NGOs, scientists, financial actors and of course, the member states. We are also launching a study, and we are working with pilots that have been set up and some exploratory projects under various technical assistance opportunities from EU funds such as Green Assist, Life Horizon Europe and also the EIB Advisory Hub.”
Green Taxonomy · Cohesion and rural funding
- “We have one pilot project also running in Peru at the moment, where it is being explored, how such, uh, cooperation could work, uh, outside of Europe. I think I have covered Average domain points. Last but not least, what is the difference with carbon? Um, again, it is about complementarity. So, um, there are options for farmers to seek carbon credits, but farmers can do different activities that benefit biodiversity but not necessarily have any additional carbon benefits. And so the idea of nature credits is indeed to be something in their own right, because they can value actions, uh, and, and situations where it's not possible for carbon credits to come in and whether or not, uh, the two should be together or not, I think is a question that needs to be discussed in earnest in the coming period. We have no answer yet. The only answer I can give to that is that definitely if it is decided to go ahead with setting up new systems we do not want to duplicate. We do not want to create additional bureaucracy. We do not want a farmer in a situation where they have to go through various very complicated different systems if they want to benefit from both. So these are open questions, and definitely we take what we heard today with us into the coming discussions. Thank you very much.”
Direct payments to farmers (pillar 1)
- “And then the second step would be a so-called credit, which would come about after independent verification of measured biodiversity outcomes. Now important to note is that the sequencing reduces risks for project developers, builds trust for investors, and keeps incentives aligned with outcomes. Um, how does this link up with what we have already? So first, the Common Agricultural Policy. The Commission is, of course, committed to ensuring coherence between this new, uh, nature credit agenda and the Common Agricultural Policy. Nature credits are not part of conditionality or eco schemes. They are complementary, voluntary. That's very important. And reward actions that exceed baseline obligations. They can operate alongside existing support measures such as agri environmental climate measures, eco schemes or result based payments, and they can offer new options to reward environmental performance. The roadmap also draws on lessons that we have already learned from carbon markets and it fully integrates what is being built up with the EU's carbon removal certification framework. From the carbon side, we retain what worked so robust monitoring, reporting and verification, registry transparency. But we also want to avoid what didn't work so well, such as opaque baselines and weak governance. So the added value of nature credits is that they capture biodiversity outcomes beyond carbon, including in places with low carbon potential but high ecological value, such as drylands or pollination, as well as better valuing maintenance activities. This is a very important point. So the idea behind nature credits is not only to start new measures for restoration, but also to value what is already being done to maintain our ecosystems in productive health.”
Agriculture (green) · Green Taxonomy
- “Madam chair, honourable members, thank you very much for this opportunity for us from the Commission to present to you why and how the Commission intends to work in this area. As Madam Chair has said, this is a complex and new area, and this is also why the Commission has come forward with a roadmap to introduce a process that we can all go along together to see how we can best approach this topic. So nature restoration is not a luxury. It is actually essential for productivity, resilience and competitiveness of European Agriculture and forestry. Healthy soils, clean water, pollination and climate stability are the foundations of our food security. And when these degrade, yields fall, risks rise and costs increase. Um, it is also an international commitment under the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in the EU. The Nature Restoration Regulation has created a framework for restoration, but financing remains a bottleneck, so public funds, notably the Common Agricultural Policy, are indispensable but cannot alone close the biodiversity finance gap, which is around €38 billion annually at the moment. So new reliable tools are needed to crowd in private capital where it can strengthen resilience on the ground. And this is exactly the purpose of the roadmap towards nature Credit, which the Commission adopted on the 7th of July. It launches an exploratory process to co-develop and co-create transparent science based systems that reward measurable biodiversity gains. The roadmap builds on a simple economic truth, and this is that nature restoration pays, but without the adequate support schemes, the benefits often accrue to society at large, whereas the costs fall on those who are actually doing the restoration action.”
Agriculture (green) · Nature protection and restoration in the EU · Agricultural funding
- “So this is farmers, foresters and local communities. As president, von der Leyen has underlined, those investing in biodiversity on the ground should be rewarded and this principle is actually consistent with the vision for agriculture and food, the EU forest strategy and also the more recent water resilience strategy, which all highlight nature as an asset for productivity, resilience and competitiveness. It's not a constraint. So what are nature credits? Nature credits can translate this principle into practice and concrete examples that are already happening today. Is maintaining high nature value features, for example hedgerows, riparian buffers or species rich grasslands, and converting to more nature friendly practices such as wetland restoration, forest transformation or peatland rewetting. All the while, this doesn't mean putting land aside, it just means making our land remain in in good health. So credits are to be certified nature positive measures and actions that go beyond individual legal obligations and the mitigation hierarchy. They should not be used to justify harm elsewhere. Rather, they value individual contributions to Member States objectives, making visible and investable the biodiversity outcomes that underpin food systems, climate adaptation and water security. One of the key messages from the roadmap is that we would think about the two step model that farmers, foresters and other land managers can engage in with confidence and go along step by step. So the first step would be certification, where an independent body assesses a project according to robust science based criteria, and this can then allow early support to to measures that are being implemented.”
Agriculture (green) · Management of EU forests · Nature protection and restoration in the EU
- “So the first part was, uh, about, um, not creating a complicated new system that is a burden for farmers, foresters and others rather than an added value. And we are completely aware of this, and there is no intention of creating an unnecessary burden with new bureaucracy. So this is why this exploratory work is, first of all, looking at everything that already exists. There is absolutely no intention because this question also came up whether we would intend to substitute existing schemes with something new. No, we take this as a learning opportunity several member states have actually started to work on systems, also in some cases legislation. But the Commission has no intention in replacing this in in any way. Big question is where will the demand come from? And indeed, this is one of the big conundrums in this exercise. From the commission side, we will launch a study. But we are also working on these pilots, and we are opening the discussion with the expert group and others to see what we know is that there is a growing demand. There are already companies that are doing such actions, and that would actually welcome some input from this process to get a bit more clarity on what is possible. One important point that came up was, um, the importance of the local and regional level. This is indeed key biodiversity is very local, so there is no question that they need to be local and regional solutions.”
Management of EU forests
- “Thank you very much. Um, thank you for this very rich and varied, uh, contributions and exchange. Uh, I think we can already draw some very valuable conclusions from this here today. The first is that everybody who spoke clearly felt that our farmers, foresters and land managers are the ones who are doing the job of actually working with nature and restoring and maintaining nature. So they must be in the center of any new scheme or initiative, uh, in this area. The second, I think very important lesson to learn from today is that there are many open questions. And this is exactly why the commission has actually decided to launch a process with an open end, because no decision whatsoever has been taken inside the commission on what kind of scheme should be set up. We know that we want to work on these elements, but whether in the end this will end up in an EU level initiative, or whether the Commission will rather work as a facilitator, um, for for more local and regional initiatives is really up to the coming years to decide, together with the expert group and anybody else who wants to participate in these discussions and brainstorming opportunities. So just to react on on a few of the things that were brought up, and I apologize in advance if I cannot answer all your questions because the commission actually doesn't have all the answers yet. And we want to work on this to find together some answers that we cannot have yet today.”
Management of EU forests · Agricultural funding
- “So we are not going into this exercise with this expectation. We rather want to create a new additional possibility, but it has to be part of a wider spectrum. And it was mentioned here that one possibility could be taxes. Well, there's also other opportunities that should really be explored and that the commission is working on. One of them is also to look at subsidies and to see whether they can those who actually harm biodiversity can be redirected into activities and support that actually benefit biodiversity, at the same time as supporting those who do good work. Um, definitely from the side of the farmer, it should be a reward for an action that the farmer is doing in his daily work. It's not about protection, making new areas, protecting, taking them out of production, putting them aside. It is really rather to work with nature as an ally, maybe a new and creative ways. And by that way, finding additional sources of income for those who undertake these actions. Um, I may want to stress again also the international dimension of this, because this came up as well. So, um, yes, uh, around the world, such schemes are also starting to show up. And in the context of the global biodiversity framework, there are actually targets for the members to together look into how such new schemes also can be launched or developed. And so what we will do in Europe with our exploratory work is also of big interest to our international partners.”
Nature protection and restoration in the EU · Direct payments to farmers (pillar 1) · Agricultural funding
- “It is probably not possible to do the same everywhere in Europe, and it's also not necessary or desirable. We have just had a very valuable contribution from your colleagues in the Committee of the regions, who have come out with an opinion just a very few weeks ago, and they stress very much in there that if this work goes ahead, it must really take into account the local level and must find opportunities for local and regional areas to go forward with such initiatives if they wish to do so. There was also the question of whether this will only benefit big players and big companies. No? So the idea is to explore with different sets and pilots of schemes. What can work in terms of actors? And the idea is absolutely not to exclude anybody because of the size. And this is part of discussions and finding possible solutions. The question was whether nature credits will fill the gap. And here, given the state of development at the moment, I think really good that I stress again that nature credits are but one possible new innovative financing instrument. It's one that we find promising, so we would like to put work into it and to develop it, but it is very clear that nature credits alone will not be able to produce huge returns, and definitely not in the short term.”
Nature protection and restoration in the EU · Cohesion and rural funding · Agricultural funding