Episode 14: How carbon and biodiversity markets can work together to conserve vital ecosystems with Dr Tim Coles OBE

Developing Carbon Stories is a podcast by Abatable, an intelligence and procurement platform for the voluntary carbon market. 

In each episode we speak with an entrepreneur from a different part of the carbon ecosystem and talk about their journey so far and how they are contributing to the fight against climate change. In series three of the podcast, we’re taking a focused look at the importance of nature-based solutions and their special ability to combat climate change while providing a host of additional co-benefits. 

In this episode of Developing Carbon Stories, we speak with Dr Tim Coles OBE, Founder of Operation Wallacea and CEO of rePLANET, an organisation that funds ecosystem restoration and protection using both carbon and biodiversity credits in terrestrial and marine environments. Tim also helped coordinate the development of the Wallacea Trust biodiversity credit methodology and encouraged the formation of the Biodiversity Futures Initiative. 

In the discussion, we explore Tim’s views on the emerging biodiversity markets and how carbon and biodiversity markets can work together to enable the conservation of biodiverse ecosystems. 

We also touch on Tim’s motivations for working in the space, and how to go about quantifying the biodiversity impact of projects. We take a deeper look into the ‘basket of metrics’ approach to monitoring biodiversity that is pivotal to the new Plan Vivo biodiversity standard, known as PV Nature, which officially launched last week.

The episode was recorded before COP28, on 16 November 2023.

Find out more about rePLANET here.

Read Abatable’s blog on how to move from targets to action on biodiversity.

Episode hosted by Daniel Fisher, Origination Manager at Abatable.

Episode produced by Marc Height, Content Manager at Abatable.