There are working examples of biodiversity credits emerging via voluntary market project developers and methodologies, as well as jurisdictional schemes. These offerings variously cover species, ecosystem and habitat credits.
Project developers starting to offer credits in the voluntary space include: Savimbo, CreditNature, ValueNature, Replanet, Terrasos, Ekos, South Pole, Environment Bank, Wilderlands, CarbonZ and Orsa Besparingsskog (forest coop).
Circa 30 governments have jurisdictional biodiversity offset schemes and a handful of these operate crediting schemes for net gain, for example England’s Biodiversity Net Gain and Australia Nature Repair Bill (for further definition of net gain, see CSBI 2015, IUCN 2017 or BBOP resources). A smaller number, including Aotearoa New Zealand, are undergoing public review for jurisdictional schemes involving credits for restoration not linked to compensation for developments.
BloombergNEF (via Compensate, 2023) estimated that the footprint of eight of the most developed existing biodiversity crediting schemes covers more than 800,000 hectares with $8 million in funding so far pledged. The latest (2023) IPR Forecast Policy Scenario (FPS) suggests the market could reach $8 billion annually by 2030 and over $40 billion by 2050, though accurate estimates are limited by lack of a common definition and framework.