Costing Biodiversity Offsets in England

01 November 2011

Applying biodiversity offsets in England, at least initially on a voluntary basis, is one of the key policy proposals in Defra’s Natural Environment White Paper published in June and a lot is already happening on this.

The cost of such offsets is an important factor to consider and was the subject of a technical report by GHK and eftec. The report makes assumptions about how the proposed system would operate in relation to land use planning and estimates the potential scale of offsetting that could take place. The financial implications of this estimate are assessed based on the unit costs developed to assess the implications of the UK BAP.

The report and all others that contributed to the offsets discussion in the White Paper can be downloaded from: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/natural/biodiversity/uk/offsetting/