A Review of Recent Biodiversity Offsetting Practice in Germany Final
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Defra project code: WC 1051 Evaluation of the Biodiversity Offsetting Pilot Phase – Sub Report A review of recent biodiversity offsetting practice in Germany Final Report February 2014 Collingwood Environmental Planning Limited in partnership with The Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) Final Report February 2013 Project title: WC1051: Evaluation of the Biodiversity Offsetting pilot phase A review of recent biodiversity offsetting practice in Germany Contracting Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) organisation: Lead contractor: Collingwood Environmental Planning Limited Address: 1E The Chandlery, 50 Westminster Bridge Road, London, SE1 7QY, UK Contact: William Sheate (Project Manager) Jonathan Baker (Project Coordinator) Tel. +44 (0)20 7407 8700 Fax. +44 (0)20 7928 6950 Email: [email protected] [email protected] Website: www.cep.co.uk Partner organisations: The Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) Address: IEEP Offices, Floor 3, 11 Belgrave Road, London SW1V 1RB, UK Contact: Graham Tucker Tel: +44 (0)20 7799 2244 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7799 2600 Email: [email protected] Website: www.ieep.eu Report details: Report title: A review of recent biodiversity offsetting practice in Germany Date issued: February 2013 Purpose: To undertake an examination of offsetting experiences in Germany Version no.: 2.5 Author(s): Underwood, E., Wende, W., Stein, C. and Tucker, G. Edited by: Sheate, W., Baker, J., and ten Brink, P. Acknowledgements The project team is particularly grateful to many people who are involved in offsetting in Germany, who provided key data on offsetting upon which this report is largely based. These are too numerous to mention, but include all the municipalities and district nature conservation agencies named in the tables of Appendix 1 of this report. The team is also grateful to James Vause, Helen Pontier and the project Steering Group for helpful advice during the project and comments on a draft of this report. 2 Final Report February 2013 Contents 0. Executive Summary ........................................................................ 4 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 4 Results ................................................................................................................................................... 4 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 5 1. Introduction to the Study ................................................................ 6 Policy relevance ................................................................................................................................. 6 Why Germany?................................................................................................................................... 6 Aims and objectives .......................................................................................................................... 7 Summary of the research approach ............................................................................................. 7 2. The German Impact Mitigation Regulation .................................. 9 The aims and scope of the Impact Mitigation Regulation ........................................................ 9 Implementation of the Impact Mitigation Regulation .............................................................. 12 3. Research Method .......................................................................... 19 Scope and approach ..................................................................................................................... 19 Data collection and analysis ......................................................................................................... 19 4. Results ............................................................................................ 21 Cost data ........................................................................................................................................... 21 5. Analysis .......................................................................................... 27 Costs per hectare in relation to habitat type and area .......................................................... 27 Costs per hectare in relation to market size and the amount of development in each district ..................................................................................................................................................... 28 Costs per hectare in relation to offset provider ......................................................................... 28 Comparison of costs with other standard costs data ............................................................... 28 6. Discussion and Conclusions ......................................................... 30 7. References ..................................................................................... 32 Appendix 1 – Information Obtained on the Assessed Plans .......... 35 Appendix 2 – Habitats Restored / Created by Offset Measures .... 45 Types of offset habitats created or restored .............................................................................. 45 Appendix 3 - Description of Cases and Costs of Offset Measures . 46 Description of the cases used in the analysis ............................................................................. 46 3 Final Report February 2013 0. Executive Summary Introduction 0.1 The research covered in this report seeks to complement the on-going evaluation of the biodiversity offsetting pilots1 by examining offsetting experiences in Germany. Particularly the study sought to establish: the costs of compensation as delivered through offsetting and habitat banking schemes; and the effects of market size, depth and liquidity on these costs. 0.2 The research examined offsetting and habitat banking in Germany as offsetting has been a mandatory requirement there since 1976, when the Impact Mitigation Regulation (IMR) was adopted as part of the Federal Nature Conservation Act. The German IMR requires the avoidance of significant negative effects, and the compensation for residual impacts on natural assets (i.e. habitats, soil, water, climate, air quality and the aesthetic quality of the landscape) and their functions. As a minimum, the policy aims to achieve no net loss of biodiversity assets and their functions. 0.3 This report compiles information on the costs of a sample of offsets, breaking these down as far as possible into key components (including the unit cost of the biodiversity outcome) and costs allocated to habitat types. The research set out to investigate whether offsetting costs in states with high demands for offsetting and large functional markets were lower than those with smaller markets. A comparison was also made of costs of offsetting through third party measures and habitat banking. 0.4 Preliminary investigations showed that due to confidentially constraints, information was not available on the costs of offsetting in rural areas. Therefore this study focussed on the costs of offsetting developments in designated settlement zones (i.e. existing or proposed urban areas) under the Building Code components of the IMR. Results 0.5 The collation of cost data was based on an initial sample of 48 development plans from 23 districts selected randomly from 11 of the 16 German federal states. The responsible authorities were contacted and cost data extracted from publically available development plans, Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and associated planning documents. The authorities were also asked to quantify the total number of development projects that fell under the IMR during the last year (i.e. 2012) within their district, as it was envisaged that this information would provide a proxy measure of demand for offsetting and market size. 0.6 In total 38 district authorities were contacted, of which 23 supplied information on the plans processed in 2012. Many plans did not include information on actual offsetting costs, as these are often only known after the offset is complete. Consequently, information on both the costs of offsetting and the demand for offsetting in the relevant districts was only obtained for 9 offsetting cases. 0.7 Analysis of the costs data indicated that, although there was a wide range of per Hectare (ha) costs, for woodland, hedgerows and grasslands, offset costs are relatively high compared to comparable restoration measures taken from other sources. It is not known why these costs are higher. Potential explanatory factors may be the fact that the offsets found are nearly all on small areas of land, or due to the lack of market pressures to reduce costs but this are unproven. 1 More information is available from: https://www.gov.uk/biodiversity-offsetting#biodiversity-offsetting-pilots-and- schemes 4 Final Report February 2013 0.8 Examination of the costed offsets reveals that 7 of them were carried out within the local authority area and only 2 were carried out where there may be a district market for offsetting. This indicates that in practice the market for these offsets is highly geographically constrained despite offsetting not being restricted under legislation to the same local authority area - provided it is within the same (much larger) bio- geographical region. Due to this finding it was not appropriate to test