SERVICING QUEENSLAND AND THE NORTHERN TERRITORY
Let us help you alleviate your project’s impact on the environment and on your triple bottom line by enquiring about our offset services today!
Stay Compliant with Tailored Biodiversity and Carbon Offset Management Plans
Biodiversity and carbon offsets are required when a project such as a mine, infrastructure or housing development is assessed to have significant impacts on the natural environment that are unavoidable.
Most of the time, if you’re looking for this service you have already undertaken an ecological assessment and will have an active development application with either local, state or federal government. You will have likely been told in the conditions of this development application that to reduce the significant impacts your project will have on nature, you have to either avoid, mitigate or offset, with offsetting the likely option.
Who can we help
We provide this service to Queensland and the Northern Territory.
Regardless of the size or type of your business, we can help you manage your impact on the environment.
What do avoid, mitigate and offset mean?
Avoidance: Eliminating Harm from the Start
Avoidance is the preferred and primary option for reducing environmental harm when a project is put forward. Governments tend to want to prioritise avoiding the impacts of a project in the first place. This method can involve choices like re-engineering the project footprint to avoid the significant impact, altering the location of the project or even re-planning the project’s necessity entirely.
Mitigation: Reducing Unavoidable Impacts
Mitigation is used where some of the impacts are unavoidable but there are ways to significantly reduce their severity. This can include options like re-engineering the project to reduce impact, altering the type of materials used, changing the time of year works are completed and so on.
Offsetting: Balancing Impacts When Avoidance and Mitigation Fall Short
In the cases where both avoidance and mitigation are untenable, offsets can be used, but these are generally a last resort, or are used as a means of offsetting unavoidable emissions. Offsetting has received both global praise and global criticism. This is largely due to the concept of ‘no net loss’ that goes with it. This term is used in offsetting to mean that an offset, if required, must ensure the impacts on nature felt at the project location are balanced out by protecting and enhancing similar natural values in a different location (often of lower quality), such that over time, overall, there is no net loss to the values as a whole. For example, significant impacts to the breeding grounds of a nationally-listed wading bird may be offset with no net loss, if another area that currently exhibits poor quality wading bird habitat can be protected and enhanced (rehabilitated) to then become an excellent breeding ground for this species. Another example might be where a company emits say 12 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year, and their operations mean they can’t currently avoid that. No net loss would therefore mean that an offset purchased by the company ensures the planting or management of land or ocean somewhere globally soaks up (sequesters) that 12 million tonnes such that over time it was as if “it was never emitted”.
From No Net Loss to Nature Positive: Raising the Bar for Development
The criticism comes where offset areas chosen don’t end up being ‘like for like’, i.e., don’t support the no net loss concept for the specific natural values identified, don’t last long enough to sequester those emissions, don’t get protected using a legal instrument (such as a conservation area or covenant), or experience other extenuating circumstances that reduce their ability to achieve their goal. Another issue comes with the concept of ‘not net loss’ itself. There is a global movement called Nature Positive being embraced by governments around the world now that calls for not just no net loss, but an actual ‘net gain’ in values for nature in response to project or developmental impacts, thereby avoiding the idea that we can get away with doing just the bare minimum; just maintaining nature at its current condition. This is a call to actually use development as a way to improve the natural world!
What is the process?
1. Comprehensive Project Review and Workshops
After providing a quote and onboarding, we will sit down with you and conduct a full review of the project, its development application, its conditions (if available), and its environmental constraints. This will take the form of desktop assessments and one-on-one client and ecologist workshops.
2. Collaborative Solutions with Cost-Benefit Focus
We will work together to draw up a solution that provides both the path of least resistance but also prioritises a responsible cost-benefit analysis to reduce expense while providing at least no net loss for nature.
3. Offset Management Plan for Seamless Submission
We will then provide the chosen pathway in an Offset Management Plan which can be provided along with your development application submission and/or condition responses.
4. Guidance from Start to Finish for Long-Term Success
We support you throughout the assessment process with government and help you understand any information requests, referrals or actions requested by them. While the offsetting process can take a while to secure an outcome, we will be able to provide you with a long-lasting service that helps you navigate it from beginning to end.
FAQs
How much does an offset cost?
Environmental offsets can range greatly in cost depending on a number of factors such as the values impacted (a single species, multiple species, a whole ecosystem), the size of the impact area, the size of the required offset to ensure no net loss or net gain, and the required administration time in brokering, legally securing and rehabilitating the offset area. Projects have ranged from about $50,000 to over $1 million in the past.
Why is an offset necessary?
As explained above, offsetting is a last resort means for trying to negate your project’s impact on the environment. Globally, human development over the past decades has resulted in less and less space for nature, including for the essential life support services nature gives us (e.g., clean air, clean water, pollination etc.). New and ongoing developments and projects with environmental impacts need to alleviate their impacts on nature as a means of maintaining and hopefully increasing space for nature and planetary health.
Is there government financial support with offsetting?
Generally no, an offset is seen by government as an option taken by the proponent to pursue their project despite the environmental impact, and as such doesn’t solicit government funding.
Are there different types of offsets available?
Yes there are three broad categories of offsets. This includes:
- An on-site offset whereby a portion of the project footprint is set aside as an offset for legal protection and maintenance
- An off-site offset whereby a preferably nearby portion of land is brokered with a separate landholder, purchased, legally protected and maintained
- A financial stipend. This option is the least preferred option but is used in cases where a physical offset cannot successfully be arranged, and is paid as a lump sum to the administering government for use for top-down conservation or environmental outcomes.
Key relevant project experience
Some examples of our recent biodiversity and carbon offsetting were for:
- Mount Emerald Wind Farm
- Mount Fox Wind Farm
- Queensland Trust for Nature Homevale Station
Get your business compliant and reduce your environmental impact
Don't just take our word for it
Why choose 4 Elements to help you get this all right?
With over 25 years of experience across Queensland, we know how to work with governments and the private sector. Our recent experience with offsetting now includes helping clients understand the best pathway to ensure an appropriate and responsible offset under the legislation. We ensure that our clients remain informed, empowered, and able to make the right decisions for them by presenting them with the best science.
Get in touch
Certifications & Industry Affiliates
