NaturePlus™ incorporates three key design elements
NaturePlus™ values and helps incentivise measurable outcomes for nature across native fauna and vegetation, soil, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems.
It incorporates three key design elements:
- Credits represent real outcomes: many payments for biodiversity are based on actions carried out with a view to restoring biodiversity in the future. NaturePlus™ Credits are only awarded to projects that have already delivered third-party audited and certified uplift in environmental condition.
- Incentives for long-term continuous improvement: with a unique continuous crediting approach NaturePlus™ is designed to improve environmental condition and maintain improvements long-term by creating a mechanism that rewards and protects gains. Adaptive management informed by measurement of environmental condition enables land managers to respond to changing ecosystem needs.
- A total ecosystem solution: NaturePlus™ is designed to work with methods that span native vegetation, fauna, soil, fresh water and marine environments.
Certified environmental accounts
NaturePlus™ Projects have certified environmental accounts under the Accounting for Nature® Framework. Accounting for Nature® is an independent not-for-profit organisation that provides a leading and scientifically rigorous accounting standard to establish condition of environmental assets. Its transparent environmental accounts track whether land management actions are improving or degrading environmental condition while the Accounting for Nature® Framework sets the standard and methods for measuring, monitoring, reporting and verifying ecological health for different environmental assets, including soils, native vegetation, wildlife, rivers and marine systems.
To be eligible for validation as a NaturePlus™ Project, projects must first have registered and certified environmental accounts under the Accounting for Nature® Framework.
NaturePlus™ Projects deliver incremental gains for nature
For a NaturePlus™ Project to be eligible for issuance of NaturePlus™ Credits for restoration activities (shown in green), the condition of the relevant Environmental Asset at the end of a monitoring period must be greater than 10 under the Accounting for Nature® Framework and exceed the condition at the start of the monitoring period.
To be issued with credits for conservation activities (shown in orange), the condition of the relevant Environmental Asset at the start of a monitoring period of the most recent Monitoring Period must be greater than the project’s conservation threshold (shown by the dotted line).
A NaturePlus™ Project can only be issued with NaturePlus™ Credits from conservation activities after it has been issued with NaturePlus™ Credits for restoration activities.
See the NaturePlus™ Standard for more details.
NaturePlus™ Scheme Administrator
While in the pilot phase, GreenCollar is administering the NaturePlus™ Registry, and sustainability consultancy ERM provides third-party audits of the Registry to ensure accountability for the NaturePlus™ Credits generated in this testing and validation phase. Longer term, the administration of the NaturePlus™ Registry will be passed to an independent external administrator.
