Proposal for a methodological roadmap to assess the ecological relevance of mitigation bank projects

Abstract

Ecological mitigation is the final step of the mitigation hierarchy and faces criticism regarding the nature of mitigation projects and its location. Faced with the obligation to generate real and sustainable ecological gains, the "ecological relevance" of a number of sites and projects is questioned. The 2016 French regulation on Mitigation Banking offers new opportunities to anticipate these issues. The associated approval procedure and the feedback from the first mitigation banking experiments highlight the need for a transparent methodological framework, both for the development and for the assessment of projects. We present here a definition of the ecological relevance of mitigation banking projects (Sites Naturels de Compensation, SNC), detail the criteria for characterizing it and propose a methodology for evaluating it. Translated into a thematic framework organized around shared criteria, this work could support future project leaders as well as state services in the development and assessment of ecologically relevant mitigation projects.