Designing markets for biodiversity offsets: lessons from tradable pollution permits

Katherine Simpson, Frans de Vries, Paul Armsworth and Nick Hanley
Additional contact information
Katherine Simpson: University of Edinburgh
Paul Armsworth: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Tennessee
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Katherine Needham

Discussion Papers in Environment and Development Economics from University of St. Andrews, School of Geography and Sustainable Development

Abstract: Biodiversity offset markets are one option for managing the trade-offs that exist between conservation targets and the increasing demand on land for urban development and agricultural expansion at local, regional and international scales. Drawing on lessons from the tradable pollution permit market literature, we review the key design parameters for biodiversity offset markets and consider how these have been applied in practice in the U.S., Australia, and the UK. We argue that offset markets should only be applied where the conservation target is a well-defined measure of biodiversity. Efficient offset markets require goods to be simple, measurable units that are fully exchangeable. This allows the market to operate under simple trading rules and engage with the widest number of participants, allowing gains from trade to be realised. We argue that a well-designed and managed offset scheme can be a more cost-effective way of meeting conservation targets than regulation.

Keywords: Biodiversity; offsets; tradeable pollution permits; transactions costs; conservation planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q28 Q57 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2017-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/dept-of-geograph ... impson%20et%20al.pdf
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/dept-of-geography-and-sustainable-development/pdf-s/DP%202017-04%20Simpson%20et%20al.pdf [302 Found]--> https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/media/dept-of-geography-and-sustainable-development/pdf-s/DP%202017-04%20Simpson%20et%20al.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sss:wpaper:2017-04

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers in Environment and Development Economics from University of St. Andrews, School of Geography and Sustainable Development Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Laure Kuhfuss ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).