Nature-based Insetting
Insetting with nature-based solutions: supporting nature, climate, and people, whilst enhancing supply chain resilience and mitigating impacts
Cécile Girardin (1), Jill MacKeith (1), Alexander Fordyce (1), Sophie Van Eetvelt (2), Claire Cockett (2), Alexandre Chausson (2), William Baldwin-Cantello (2)
1. Nature-based Insights: a social venture spin-out of the Nature based Solutions Initiative, University of Oxford
2. WWF-UK Nature-based Solutions Accelerator, part of the Climate Solutions Partnership, a philanthropic collaboration between HSBC, the World Resources Institute and WWF-UK
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In collaboration with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Nature-based Solutions Accelerator and Climate Solutions Partnership between HSBC, the World Resources Institute and WWF-UK, Nature-based Insights (NbI) led a briefing paper: Delivering more by insetting through NbS, looking beyond carbon to support supply chain resilience, mitigate impacts and ensure benefits for nature and people. The paper explores the concept of insetting strategies in land-based natural raw material supply chains, asking if insetting with nature-based solutions (NbS insetting) could help address risks and opportunities related to climate, nature and people.
Building on existing guidelines, the paper explores the current definitions of insetting characteristics of high-integrity insetting and highlights the need for collective action on developing a rigorous, standardised, accountable insetting framework.
Corporate environmental and social risk
The central role of businesses and investors in addressing the climate change and biodiversity loss crises is leading to a surge in environmental and social responsibility (ESR) initiatives. New regulations like the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), and voluntary frameworks (e.g. Science Based Targets Network – SBTN, Task force for Nature-related Financial Disclosure – TNFD) are pushing companies to disclose their impacts and set ambitious targets for both climate and biodiversity.
A common approach for addressing unavoidable climate impacts has been to turn to offsetting, where companies invest in projects outside their footprint to generate credits that compensate for their environmental impacts. Where offsetting typically refers to companies investing in projects elsewhere to compensate for their carbon or biodiversity footprint (projects occur outside the company’s own operations or supply chains), insetting should involve companies taking action to mitigate and address these impacts directly within the landscapes associated with their supply chains. This would be classed as scope 3 emissions or removals in carbon terms, i.e. those indirectly generated throughout companies’ supply chains. The concept of insetting is rapidly gaining traction: insetting involves taking actions to address impacts and enhance nature within landscapes associated with a company’s supply chain. However, insetting to date has generally focused only on carbon, and the integrity of the approach remains uncertain. Broadening out from a carbon-focused approach to include impacts on nature and human wellbeing has the potential to yield multiple benefits. An approach the authors refer to as NbS insetting.
Complex landscapes host more biodiversity than simple ones – composed of protected and restored natural ecosystems, sustainable agriculture, buffer zones, and wildlife corridors to ensure connectivity between ecosystems (Estrada-Carmona et al. 2022). Nature-based solutions (NbS) work for and place Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) at the heart of the solution. With this understanding, adopting an NbS approach to insetting has the potential to address corporate supply chain impacts and risks while improving local social, ecological and operational resilience.