A Policy Analysis of Biodiversity Offsetting: Benchmarking Against International Best Practice Principles

Given global threats to biodiversity, implementing effective biodiversity offset policies is increasingly recognised as being essential for delivering sustainable development. As research and practice on offsets has developed, so have international expectations of best practice principles, which set the benchmark for national systems in their efforts to protect biodiversity. This research aims to synthesise best practice principles for biodiversity offsets from the international literature, developing a benchmark to assess the extent to which national policies align with international standards. Chile is selected as a suitable case study due to its biodiversity richness and emerging biodiversity offsets policy, to test this analytical framework. The analysis indicates that the benchmark provides a useful basis for assessing national biodiversity offset policies and shows that Chilean policy demonstrates an initial alignment with international best practices, though several areas for improvement remain.