No net loss of what, for whom?

The paper examines the adoption of Biodiversity Offsetting in England, highlighting a significant gap between policy implementation and research on its impacts. Through stakeholder interviews, the authors identify critical failures in both ecological compensation—such as the oversimplification of biodiversity metrics—and social compensation, specifically the marginalization of local communities and the loss of public access to nature. The study argues that the current 'no net loss' framework is a normative construct that often fails to account for the irreplaceable nature of certain habitats and the distributive justice concerns of affected populations.

• Stakeholders identified significant barriers to ecological compensation, including a lack of long-term monitoring and a failure in the planning system to protect biodiversity before site allocation.
• Environmental campaigners argue that Biodiversity Offsetting may undermine existing protections by creating ambiguity about what can be developed and by treating 'no net loss' as a weaker sustainability paradigm than 'no loss'.
• The 'Defra metric' used to calculate biodiversity units is criticized by academic researchers and local planning authorities for being too simplistic and lacking empirical evidence for its multipliers.
• There is a perceived conflict between the goals of biodiversity conservation and the provision of public access to green space, with some stakeholders arguing that social compensation is a major blind spot in the current framework.
• The study highlights a lack of social inclusion, noting that local communities are often marginalized in the design and delivery of offsets, while NGOs may be distanced from the communities they represent due to alliances with the private sector.
• Academic researchers argue that achieving 'no net loss' in ecological value does not guarantee 'no net loss' in distributive justice, as the benefits of nature may be lost to local people.
• The transition toward market-based conservation is viewed by some as a neoliberal rescaling of governance where the state withdraws funding and responsibility, expecting the private sector to fill the gap.
• Practical challenges in the US Mitigation Banking program, such as unsuccessful wetland restoration in Ohio and failure to build offset sites in Massachusetts, serve as warnings for the UK context.

APA

Taherzadeh, O., & Howley, P. (2016). No net loss of what, for whom? Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-WP-2016-11-Nonetlosssm.pdf

Chicago

Taherzadeh, Oliver, and Peter Howley. No net loss of what, for whom? Stockholm Environment Institute, 2016. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-WP-2016-11-Nonetlosssm.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Taherzadeh |first1=Oliver |last2=Howley |first2=Peter |title=No net loss of what, for whom? |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=October 2016 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-WP-2016-11-Nonetlosssm.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{taherzadeh2016net, author = {Taherzadeh, Oliver and Howley, Peter}, title = {{No net loss of what, for whom?}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2016}, month = oct, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-WP-2016-11-Nonetlosssm.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }