Second global environmental challenge
According to the United Nations, 60% of the vital services provided by nature for mankind are in declining.
In order to fight against the erosion of biodiversity, the second global environmental challenge according to the United Nations (UN) the Caisse des Dépôts Group created in February 2008 a subsidiary, CDC Biodiversité, the first biodiversity offsetting financial operator.
Biodiversity: what is it?
Biodiversity refers to the diversity of the living world (flora, fauna, and ecosystems).
At the Rio Earth Summit (1992), under the aegis of the UN, a global agreement on biodiversity made the protection and the restoration of the diversity of living beings, considered as one of the essential resources of sustainable development, a priority.
The strength of the partnership
CDC Biodiversité is a subsidiary of Caisse des Dépôts dedicated to the preservation of biodiversity. It was created upon the initiative of the Société Forestière (Forestry Society), a subsidiary of Caisse des Dépôts, in close cooperation with the public authorities, large associations working for the protection of nature and leading scientists.
A top-level scientific board has been formed and a partnership has been established with France Nature Environnement.
A platform of exchange, open to associations, local authorities and groups involved in biodiversity, is currently being set up
The principle of offsetting
The subsidiary CDC Biodiversité offers its services to all project managers concerned about protecting biodiversity, either on a voluntary basis or in compliance with their legal offsetting obligation (of work carried out).
It ensures the supervision of the works, their potential financing and their long-term management. It seeks to promote the application of the principle “No net waste” which consists of offsetting the residual impacts of the construction or development works which could not be avoided or reduced :
- by demand : it intervenes on behalf of project managers who are subject to offsetting obligations or who are offsetting on a voluntary basis.
- by supply : it carries out environmental operations, such as creating natural assets reserves (réserves d’actifs naturels (RAN)) which generate biodiversity credit likely to be recognised as offsetting measures of land development projects.
Innovative, this initiative is being run as an experiment in partnership with the Ministry of Ecology. A first operation was launched in Camargue, on the Crau Plain (Bouches du Rhône).
CDC Biodiversité intervenes as a reliable third party between project managers, the public authorities and groups involved in biodiversity, to ensure that the commitments undertaken will be carried out in the long-term, over periods which can exceed 30 years. The challenge is to encourage the creation of the environmental infrastructures which France needs.
