Turning biodiversity plans into action

The climate and biodiversity crises are two urgent and deeply interconnected challenges. As one of the world’s leading renewable energy companies, at Ørsted we believe that renewable energy is at the intersection of these challenges.

Restoring biodiversity is one of the most powerful tools we have to fight climate change, and it’s imperative that our green energy solutions contribute to both ecosystem health and deliver positive community benefits. 

That’s the message I took to COP16, the UN’s biodiversity conference, that took place in Cali, Columbia at the beginning of November. Imploring Governments, NGOs, scientists, academics, and industries to turn biodiversity plans into concrete action.

Leading the way from the UK

The UK has established itself as a world leader in offshore wind. Other markets around the world look to the UK as a template for how things should be done – not just in terms of scale and cost, but how to build offshore wind in the right way. 

We have always had a strong focus on building projects sensitively and sustainably. We’ve had to innovate and work closely with other partners, NGOs, scientists, academics, and industries to find solutions to some very complex challenges. Working collaboratively together, we can achieve more – faster. 

With the new Government’s ambition to accelerate the deployment of offshore wind to deliver clean power by 2030, the UK is, once more, going to have to take the lead on creating a regulatory framework that can deliver this whilst also improving the biodiversity in our seas and coastline. 

The right regulatory framework can enhance biodiversity whilst simultaneously accelerating the deployment of offshore wind

Our marine environment is currently in a degraded state.  Any new policies must not only protect but also enhance the biodiversity in our seas.  At the same time, we should note that offshore wind is not the only industry that effects our marine environment: transport, communications, oil and gas, aggregates, fishing and other activities all have an impact.  

Nonetheless, with the need to deploy substantially more offshore wind, we are going to have to find a planning framework that can deliver this acceleration AND enhance the state of our seas.  Fortunately there are policies that can deliver this.  

We know many of the solutions – but we need to implement them at speed

One of the key opportunities is to take a strategic approach to compensating for the impact of offshore wind projects.  Currently, each project is asked to provide measures to compensate for any impact that the project might have on the marine environment. It would be better for offshore wind projects to pool their resources into a larger fund that the Government could use to spend on the actions that would best support the recovery of the wider ecosystem.  

Defra is already working on this strategic approach and has created the concept of the ‘Marine Recovery Fund’ but if the Government is going to enable clean power by 2030, then it is vital that this planning reform is delivered quickly, and the Fund is brought into being as soon as possible.  To be most effective, it is also important that the UK Government and Devolved Administrations find a pan-UK solution. 

If the UK gets its planning reform right, it will be able to deploy more offshore wind and simultaneously enhance the marine environment.  If Government, industry, and NGOs work together, we can deliver green energy and long-lasting benefits for nature and people.

Examples of improving biodiversity: Wilder Humber 

An example of the kind of strategic project that can enhance our marine environment is Wilder Humber. The Humber Estuary is one of the most important natural features in the UK –especially for the birds and other wildlife that depend on it. But decades of pollution and commercial development have resulted in the severe decline of precious habitats and species, such as sand dunes, salt marsh, seagrass, and native oysters.

Ørsted have teamed up with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust to deliver an ecosystem-level programme including restoration of seagrass and saltmarsh and the introduction of half a million native oysters to improve the health and resilience of the estuary’s ecosystem.

It’s one of many pilot projects we’re working on around the globe to help inform what methods we can scale in a wide range of ecosystems to deliver on our 2030 ambition to deliver a net-positive biodiversity impact from all new renewable energy projects and support long-term benefits to nature.