Search results for "offsetting"
showing 9 items of 9 documents
Fifteen operationally important decisions in the planning of biodiversity offsets
2018
Many development projects, whether they are about construction of factories, mines, roads, railways, new suburbs, shopping malls, or even individual houses, have negative environmental consequences. Biodiversity offsetting is about compensating that damage, typically via habitat restoration, land management, or by establishment of new protected areas. Offsets are the fourth step of the so-called mitigation hierarchy, in which ecological damage is first avoided, minimized second, and third restored locally. Whatever residual damage remains is then offset. Offsetting has been increasingly adopted all around the world, but simultaneously serious concerns are expressed about the validity of the…
Precision, Applicability, and Economic Implications: A Comparison of Alternative Biodiversity Offset Indexes
2021
AbstractThe rates of ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss are alarming and current conservation efforts are not sufficient to stop them. The need for new tools is urgent. One approach is biodiversity offsetting: a developer causing habitat degradation provides an improvement in biodiversity so that the lost ecological value is compensated for. Accurate and ecologically meaningful measurement of losses and estimation of gains are essential in reaching the no net loss goal or any other desired outcome of biodiversity offsetting. The chosen calculation method strongly influences biodiversity outcomes. We compare a multiplicative method, which is based on a habitat condition index develo…
Three ways to deliver a net positive impact with biodiversity offsets
2020
Biodiversity offsetting is the practice of using conservation actions, such as habitat restoration, management, or protection, to compensate for ecological losses caused by development activity, including construction projects. The typical goal of offsetting is no net loss (NNL), which means that all ecological losses are compensated for by commensurate offset gains. We focused on a conceptual and methodological exploration of net positive impact (NPI), an ambitious goal that implies commitment beyond NNL and that has recently received increasing attention from big business and environmental nongovernmental organizations. We identified 3 main ways NPI could be delivered: use of an additiona…
The carbon footprint of a knowledge organization and emission scenarios for a post-COVID-19 world
2021
Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The looming climate crisis requires an immediate response, in which organizations, as major contributors, should play a central role. However, these organizations need appropriate tools to measure and mitigate their climate impacts. One commonly applied method is carbon footprint analysis. Carbon footprint analyses have been conducted for various types of organizations, but knowledge organizations, such as universities and research institutes, have received far less attention, because their carbon footprint is often less visible and can be easily underestimated. This study is based on the carbon footprint analysis of one multinational knowledge organization. This…
Variable-Radius Offset Surface Approximation on the GPU
2020
Variable-radius offset surfaces find applications in various fields, such as variable brush strokes in 2D and 3D sketching and geometric modeling tools. In forensic facial reconstruction the skin surface can be inferred from a given skull by computing a variable-radius offset surface of the skull surface. Thereby, the skull is represented as a two-manifold triangle mesh and the facial soft tissue thickness is specified for each vertex of the mesh. We present a method to interactively visualize the wanted skin surface by rendering the variable-radius offset surfaces of all triangles of the skull mesh. We have also developed a special shader program which is able to generate a discretized vol…
Elaborating biodiversity offsetting towards ecological accounting of land use planning
2022
Suomen Akatemian hankerahoitus (TRANAPLAN, 333366) Ekologista kompensaatiota on ehdotettu keinoksi, jonka avulla myös Suomessa voitaisiin ratkoa maankäytön muutoksista aiheutuvan luontokadon ongelmaa. Esimerkiksi tonttituotantokohteiden tai rakennettavan liikenneväylän heikentämät luontoarvot tulisi hyvittää jossain toisaalla, jotta elinympäristöt ja luonnon monimuotoisuus eivät vähenisi hankkeen vaikutuksesta. Ekologisen kompensaation idea ei ole ongelmaton: sen voi perustellusti pelätä edistävän ympäristölle haitallisten hankkeiden toteuttamista. Kustannus, jonka maan käyttäjä luontoarvojen heikentämisestä saa vastattavakseen, voidaan mieltää ostetuksi luvaksi heikentää ympäristöä. Kompen…
Offsetting harmful ecological impacts by restoring conservation areas
2019
Ihmistoiminnasta aiheutuvat ekologisesti haitalliset vaikutukset voidaan kompensoida tuottamalla luonnon kannalta hyötyjä, esimerkiksi ennallistamalla elinympäristöjä tai perustamalla uusia luonnonsuojelualueita. Elinympäristön ennallistaminen mahdollistaa elinympäristön palautumisen kohti luonnontilaa. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli selvittää, voitaisiinko jo aiemmin suojelluilla alueilla tehtävällä ennallistamisella saavuttaa ekologisessa kompensaatiossa tarvittava luontohyöty. Voi ehkä vaikuttaa siltä, että tällä tavoin tuotetut hyödyt eivät ole luonnon kannalta lisäisiä, koska toimenpiteet kohdistuvat alueisiin, jotka ovat jo suojeltu. Suomessa on kuitenkin tällä hetkellä monia suo…
Social impacts of biodiversity offsetting: A review
2022
Biodiversity offsetting is the widely studied last step of the mitigation hierarchy. Despite numerous studies and the methodological development completed for biodiversity calculations, the human aspect remains unsolved. Biodiversity conservation is typically governed at national or state levels, but the harm caused to biodiversity as well as people occurs locally. In biodiversity offsetting, biodiversity values can be relocated far from the original area, but relocating the values people hold regarding their nearby nature may not be possible. Acknowledging the local people's hopes and values may further complicate biodiversity offsetting, therefore it emphasises even more the need to avoid…
Review of carbon emissions offsetting guidelines using instructional criteria
2023
Abstract Purpose Carbon offsetting is one of the tools that companies can use to achieve their climate targets. The ability of a company to offset its emissions successfully depends on the availability and quality of guidance on the subject. This study explores how well existing offsetting guidelines equip corporations to achieve successful emissions offsetting. Methods Instructional criteria were developed and used to evaluate seven guidelines. The contents of each guideline were assessed based on how they instruct a company to achieve emissions offsetting that fulfills five criteria for appropriate offsetting: target affiliation, Paris compatibility, effectiveness, prioritizing removals, …