Highlights•Biodiversity offsets are a compensation tool that uses a common metric.•We
reviewed the scientific literature on biodiversity offsetting.•Most common challenges are …

Globally the coastal zone is suffering the collateral damage from continuing urban
development and construction, expanding resource sectors, increasing population …

The rising popularity of biodiversity offsetting as a tool for balancing biodiversity losses from
development with equivalent gains elsewhere has sparked debate on many fronts. The …

Biodiversity offsets are an increasingly popular yet controversial tool in conservation. Their
popularity lies in their potential to meet the objectives of biodiversity conservation and of …

Offsetting is emerging as an important but controversial approach for managing environment–
development conflicts. Biodiversity offsets are designed to compensate for damage to …

There is an urgent need to improve the evaluation of conservation interventions. This
requires specifying an objective and a frame of reference from which to measure …

Biodiversity offset trades usually aim to achieve 'no net loss' of biodiversity. But the question
remains: no net loss compared to what? Determining whether an offset can compensate for …

Biodiversity conservation policies incorporating a no net loss (NNL) principle are being
implemented in many countries. However, there are linguistic and conceptual …

The benefit (or additionality) attributable to a conservation action is the difference between
the outcomes of two scenarios:(1) the scenario with the conservation action, and (2) the …

Spurred by recent initiatives aimed at achieving “No Net Loss” of biodiversity, the concept of
biodiversity offsetting (henceforth BO) is growing in popularity in the political, business …