Here in the US, implementing these types of policies seems mostly like a political pipedream at the moment. I could imagine a really smart developer doing this as a marketing scheme, maybe. maybe. But this is a great article that gives us a window into some things that are being tried in Europe (although, I also hear voices in Europe speaking longingly of the perceived lack of regulation in the US). I don’t know – our regulations may be equally strong or stronger in some areas like hydrology and water quality (which is missing from the framework discussed here btw) wetland and floodplain protection, and endangered species (although these are under constant political threat). Ideally in my view, species would not have to get endangered first before we will do anything for them.
As part of the actions to fight biodiversity loss, the European Union is working on a restoration regulation demanding the principle of no net loss (NNL) state of biodiversity of urban green space. Applying this principle in urban planning may raise conflicts between biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services provision. Furthermore, integrating the NNL of biodiversity principle into urban planning cannot be isolated from existing planning tools or processes. Here we present a novel approach where the green area factor tool and biodiversity offsetting are integrated to achieve NNL of biodiversity in urban planning, while maintaining the necessary ecosystem services and avoiding the negative, unintended tradeoffs that may occur if only one of these tools is used in the planning process. We provide a model which combines the two approaches to create a holistic method to understand and govern both biodiversity and ecosystem services of urban greenery. The model is intended to be used as part of urban planning processes.