Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) is developing / implementing two different standards/methodologies relating to biodiversity – ‘The Global Biodiversity Standard’ (TGBS) and the ‘Biodiversity Impact Credit’ methodology.
TGBS is designed to provide assurance that tree planting, habitat restoration and agroforestry practices are protecting, restoring, and enhancing biodiversity. TGBS is a site-based assessment and certification and all land management initiatives, including habitat restoration, tree planting and agriculture initiatives, are eligible for certification. TGBS is designed to provide recognition for the sites that have improved biodiversity and is not designed to be used as a compensatory or tradeable product. However, it has been reported that BGCI may consider converting TGBS into a biodiversity credit scheme in the future.
Biodiversity Impact Credits (BICs) have been developed in collaboration with academics at Queen Mary University London, who released three methodologies for the generation of BICs in the context of tree and forest conservation in 2023. BICs are tradable biodiversity credits for species conservation and are designed to quantify the positive and negative effects that interventions in the natural environment have on mean long-term global species extinction risk. BGCI is the first provider of BICs, which are currently being generated by projects operating in the BGCI’s Tree Conservation Fund.
