In order to deliver a high integrity Biodiversity Standard which meets the needs of the wider community, Plan Vivo held a second public consultation on a new PV Nature Methodology.

We are currently reviewing the responses, having closed the public consultation on the 4th September. A final, revised version of the Methodology will be released in due course. In the meantime, please continue to treat the available version as draft and for guidance only. 

  

Key features of the PV Nature Methodology

The new PV Nature Methodology, developed in partnership with Pivotal, is founded on the principle that Plan Vivo Biodiversity Certificates (PVBCs) will only be issued where there is high-quality, auditable data that provides evidence of biodiversity outcomes. In other words, PVBCs are only issued only where there is evidence that species and habitats have benefited. 

Each PVBC will represent measured, evidenced outcomes delivered for biodiversity – either via ecosystem restoration or the protection of globally important species and habitats. PVBCs represent holistic biodiversity outcomes, assessed and evidenced across a broad range of the aspects of biodiversity that underpin ecosystem health.  

As with PVCs (Plan Vivo Certificates), PVBCs must also deliver co-benefits for people and climate. All these elements are necessary for any projects wishing to generate certificates that align with Plan Vivo’s high-integrity principles. Certificates (credits) that are based only on biodiversity (without social outcomes) and/or on only narrow indicators of biodiversity (e.g., only indicator species or habitat area) are at risk of not realising tangible and sustainable outcomes.  

Under the PV Nature Methodology, projects must collect and report data on a number of broad species groups, across a range of trophic levels (for example on birds, plants, amphibians, bats, and so on). It will not be possible to issue certificates based on numbers of one iconic species or on simple measures like area of habitat, because these types of very simple indicators do not reliably represent ecosystem health. 

The new PV Nature Methodology strives to: 

• Set high standards in a broad range of ecosystems and geographies 
• Make nature-markets accessible to communities globally 
• Contribute towards global goals by positively incentivising restoration & conservation 
• Minimise subjectivity and prioritise scientific rigour 
• Link financing to evidenced outcomes for nature, climate and communities 

     

The Plan Vivo and Pivotal Partnership

This new approach has been designed by Plan Vivo in partnership with Pivotal to address the points raised in the first public consultation and to consider practical applicability in the context of the projects we work with, without compromising scientific robustness. It is essential that local communities can collect data on their projects while ensuring the integrity of that data, and that the knowledge of IPLCs of the ecosystems in which they live can help create the most robust and meaningful analysis.  

The Plan Vivo Foundation is a long-standing independent Standard setter. The PVF Secretariat maintains and administers PV Nature and certifies projects that meet all requirements of the Standard.  

Pivotal is a biodiversity data and analytics innovation company. Pivotal is not developing projects and does not intend to. This is important because it means that Pivotal is not selling the credits that result from its data analysis - ensuring high-integrity by maintaining independence between analysis of biodiversity outcomes and the projects generating certificates. 

Pivotal provides a data and analytics platform that: 

• Enables local experts to help identify species and help with quality control  
• Supports projects to collect their own biodiversity data through the use of technology-based tools that are affordable and easy to deploy, and do not require expert ecologists on-site 
• Enables projects to calculate and evidence, from the data they have collected, the number of high-quality Plan Vivo Biodiversity Certificates (PVBCs) they have generated  
• Simplifies the very complex process of analysing results and trends from multi-dimensional biodiversity data, and quality controls these analyses 
• Enables third-party audit of the full data analytics pipeline, from raw data to certificate calculations  

We believe that high integrity biodiversity markets depend on evidence-based data that is transparent, quality controlled and auditable. 

Projects wishing to issue PVBCs must also demonstrate to Plan Vivo as the certifying Standard that they are compliant with all the other requirements of the Standard, including stakeholder engagement/FPIC, social and environmental safeguards and transparent and equitable benefit sharing. As with the current Plan Vivo Standard the whole process is subject to periodic third-party verification, i.e. independent from the projects, Plan Vivo or Pivotal. PVBCs will be issued on an independent registry.  

The methodology for calculation of PVBCs will be open source and published in full. The Pivotal platform with the PV Nature project data will be periodically audited by a third party.   

Plan Vivo and Pivotal will work together to provide support to projects, assisting with (for example) selecting data collection tools.  

  

PV Nature Public Consultation 2.0: Methodology

The PV Nature Public Consultation 2.0 (Methodology) closed on the 4th of September 2023. Plan Vivo, and our dedicated PV Nature partners, are currently reviewing the responses. A final, revised version of the Methodology will be released in due course. In the meantime, please continue to treat the available version as draft and for guidance only: 

PV Nature Methodology >

 

If you have any queries surrounding PV Nature and/or the Public Consultation 2.0, please email [email protected]

  

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