News published: 11 December 2023

The Global Biodiversity Standard is the world’s only international standard that recognises and promotes the protection, restoration, and enhancement of biodiversity.

It provides assurance that land management interventions such as tree planting, habitat restoration and agroforestry practices undertaken by organisations and governments are protecting, safeguarding, and restoring biodiversity, rather than inadvertently causing harm.

Its mission is to replace the ‘any tree at minimal cost’ solution to climate change and tree planting with long-term, best practice solutions that combine the considerations of biodiversity, local communities, and carbon capture by providing recognition, incentives, assurance and knowledge.

Throughout 2023, there have been important steps forward for this initiative including a technical consultation, a public consultation, a presentation at COP28, and the development of The Global Biodiversity Standard manual.

The ongoing work towards the establishment of The Global Biodiversity Standard is the result of the collaboration between a number of global partners. The progress to date, includes:

• Testing the methodology at over 100 sites.
• The launch and success of the technical consultation.
• Finalising the methodology (which will be published January 2024).
• ‘Train-the-trainer’ workshop scheduled in Brazil at Jardim Botanico Araribá, where we will train 20 participants. 
• These 20 participants will then go on to train 200 assessors throughout 2024
• The full launch of The Global Biodiversity Standard will be mid-2024
• The launch and success of the public consultation, which saw 167 responses.

Plus, the re-introduction of The Global Biodiversity Standard newsletter, which documents all the success that the team has seen recently. You can view past issues here.

The Global Biodiversity Standard team were delighted that the IUCN allowed us to present at their event at COP28 to showcase the standard. BGCI’s Global Biodiversity Standard Project Manager, David Bartholomew, did a fantastic job at highlighting the importance of this initiative. Watch the presentation at COP28 via the link below (forward video to 9:16:20 for the GBS presentation if it plays from the beginning).

IUCN at COP28 Live Stream: December 4th 2023 – YouTube