Gold Standard announces a collaboration with the Organization for Biodiversity Certificates (OBC). This partnership demonstrates Gold Standard's commitment to supporting innovative methodologies that prioritise the restoration and preservation of biodiversity.
The OBC is a collective initiative that brings together companies, NGOs, and scientific experts to facilitate the private sector's contribution to biodiversity conservation and restoration. The OBC's approach to creating biodiversity certificates is rooted in scientific rigour, open-source methodology, and a collaborative dialogue between field experts, scientists, and companies. This methodology is coordinated by institutions such as the National Museum of Natural History and the Foundation for Research in Biodiversity.
Gold Standard CEO, Margaret Kim, said:
"Protecting our planet's biodiversity is not just a responsibility, but a necessity for a sustainable future. By combining scientific expertise with collaborative efforts, we can make meaningful strides in biodiversity conservation. Gold Standard is proud to be part of this journey, emphasising the importance of rigorous methodologies in preserving the natural world."
Fabiola Flex, President of the Organisation for Biodiversity Certificates said:
“In this period when certain financial mechanisms put in place to encourage private actors to finance environmental projects are being disrupted, OBC is delighted to support Gold Standard in its search for excellence for this tool intended to serve the restoration and preservation of Nature: biodiversity certificates.”
Gold Standard's collaboration with the OBC centres around the development of a methodology for biodiversity impact measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV). This methodology focuses on the "carrying capacity" of an environment. In simple terms, carrying capacity is a score between 0 and 1 that tells us how well an environment can support life. Instead of studying every animal or plant, this score helps us understand if an ecosystem is getting better or worse when changes are made. Different types of ecosystems, like forests or oceans, have unique factors that affect their carrying capacity.
Gold Standard will bring its expertise to the OBC and its Methodology Consortium, which consists of the National Museum of Natural History, the Foundation for Research in Biodiversity and Carbone4. Together they will explore how this carrying capacity approach for defining ecosystem-specific biodiversity impacts can be tailored for different ecosystems to measure their health and offer certification pathways, as well as market approaches. The methodology will be adopted if it aligns with Gold Standard's rigorous technical benchmarks.