Environment Agency partners with Environment Bank on coastal flooding scheme

ENVIRONMENT AGENCY PARTNERS WITH THE ENVIRONMENT BANK

-to create Eco Markets for coastal flood management and habitat banking

Swindon, 7 April 2011: A new market mechanism to enable sea levels to rise in a managed way, creating coastal grazing and sea marshes on the Suffolk and Essex coast, is being piloted by the Environment Bank in partnership with the Environment  Agency.

Developers and companies will be required to offset their impact on biodiversity and ecosystem services by purchasing conservation credits, which will be used to manage Essex and Suffolk coastal land registered with the Environment Bank. It is understood that the Conservation Credit approach is to be a feature of the forthcoming Natural Environment White paper.

Landowners, farmers and local wildlife trusts will be involved in helping to create, restore and manage the land enabling sea level rise to be accommodated, providing flood risk mitigation and creating valuable biodiversity.

“This is an exciting and innovative project which we hope will facilitate the delivery of our coastal flood risk management projects by creating a new market for intertidal habitat creation around our coast in Essex and Suffolk,” said Dr Charles Beardall, Area Manager for the Environment Agency.  “We will support the Environment Bank in exploring this approach with the partnerships we have developed throughout our Shoreline Management Plans locally.  This is a good demonstration of private sector investment working alongside public bodies to create wider environmental, economic and societal benefits for coastal communities”.

For the past four years, the Environment Bank Ltd has been refining a delivery model for the UK in consultation with central government, NGO’s, developers, landowners, farmers and local authorities.  Now the Shell Foundation has agreed to provide funding and internal expertise for the next year to allow the Environment Bank to proceed with developing mechanisms for magnetising natural resources into practice.

“This represents a hugely significant market-based opportunity that can be scaled up (in the UK and in emerging economies) and become financially viable,” said Chris West, Chief Executive, of the Shell Foundation. “The project will explore the potential for private investment and emerging external markets to offset development impacts on biodiversity and impacts of coastal change on communities and businesses,” he continued.

David Hill, Chairman of the Environment Bank added: “Creating markets for ecosystem goods and services should stop the environment being treated as a non-replenishing extractive industry. We think that offsetting will naturally expand to encompass water, carbon (sequestration), nutrients, flood risk mitigation and natural resource restoration. The model we have developed, together with the trading infrastructure we are constructing, will be capable of listing, registering and validating credits in respect of the full range of emerging markets for ecosystem services and we are grateful to The Shell Foundation for all their support.”

Similar schemes exist in the US and Europe and estimates put the value of biodiversity markets globally at $10bn per annum. Some experts believe these may outgrow carbon markets within a short time frame.

ENDS