Work package 3

WP3 formulates a feasible, operational approach to offsets and implements a freeware for the calculations and reporting needed in a real-life offsets project (PI Moilanen). Biodiversity offsets need to balance ecological losses and gains through time, conditional on actions done and accounting for factors such as partial gains, additionality, leakage, time discounting etc. It is very easy to fail offsetting by either using an approach that is too conceptual and vague, or, at the other extreme, too complicated and data-hungry to be realistically replicable. Moilanen and Kotiaho have formulated the operationally relevant decisions and data needs that need to be answered when aiming at NNL or Net Positive Impact (AM7,9, JSK2,6,9). Not only has this work been published scientifically, but it has already been applied to the potential Sakatti mine near Sodankylä, which is the first major project in Finland that includes a credible plan for offsets (80 km2 implementation area) as part of its EIA (AM10). In this WP, we willalso write a book around the approach and the Sakatticase, thereby making the approach better accessible in Finland and globally. Also, we will implement a free software that handles (i) supervised decision logic for qualitative decisions in the offset design process, (ii) the responses and calculations needed in the specification of offsets, (iii) a data base for storing case-specific information about impacts and compensation, and (iv) standard reporting of the offset plan. To broaden the case, the book willcover also the biodiversity impact accounting for organizations developed in WP5 and item (iii) above will be co-created with WP4 so that the interface between the software and the national offset register will be seamless.