UCL partners with Wild Planet Trust on biodiversity offsetting project

Exploring the potential for the Trust to be a provider of the offsetting scheme

UCL School of Management has formed a partnership with the Wild Planet Trust to develop environmental and biodiversity loss solutions within academia and the financial industry.

As part of the UCL’s Sustainability Lab, an initiative where students and industry partners address business and sustainability issues, the new partnership will leverage the expertise from UCL’s faculty and the Trust’s conservation experts to create impact projects. UCL students have already drafted a sustainability strategy for Wild Planet Trust.

Students are also currently engaged in research aimed at developing the biodiversity offsetting market, which would explore the potential for Wild Planet Trust to become a provider of biodiversity offsetting services.

What is biodiversity offsetting? Biodiversity offsetting is an emerging tool that would seek to mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of business activities by ensuring that any loss of biodiversity is compensated for elsewhere.

Paolo Taticchi, professor in strategy and sustainability at UCL, said: “In the face of continued uncertainty and global challenges, we need to look beyond business as usual. As a school we wanted to find new ways to create a positive impact on the environment through our work and collaborations, which is what led us to Wild Planet Trust. These kinds of partnerships are a great learning experience for our students too, who want to create real change in the future of business. This is one of the first projects for our innovative Sustainability Lab, and we look forward to working together to make a material contribution to protecting the environment.”

Dennis Flynn, CEO of Wild Planet Trust, added: “A business school may not seem to be the traditional birthplace of a conservationist, but the reality is that we are all conservationists if we choose to be. We can all do things to benefit nature and the world around us, and the more perspectives we consider, the more we can do to help halt species decline.”