Integrating Nature into Offshore Wind Development: A new GINGR white paper

At COP30 in Belém, GINGR unveiled its latest white paper, Integrating Nature into Offshore Wind Development: Stocktake and Recommendations, setting out a clear route for offshore wind to contribute actively to global Nature-Positive goals. 

Complementing our Powering a Nature-Positive Future: A Renewable Energy Roadmap white paper, also published in conjunction with COP30, this offshore wind-focused paper brings together practices from industry, governments, finance and civil society to demonstrate how offshore wind can scale at speed while restoring ocean health and supporting communities. The paper was written in close collaboration with GINGR's Offshore working group and takes stock of where the offshore energy sector stands today and identifies the levers that can shift offshore wind towards genuinely Nature-Positive outcomes. It focuses on three areas where change can be rapid and transformative: using biodiversity non-price criteria in auctions and tenders, Nature-Positive enabling infrastructure, and decommissioning practices for nature and people.

COP30 launch and uptake

The white paper quickly became part of the formal legacy of COP30. It is featured as an official outcome under the Ocean Renewable Energy Breakthrough in the UNFCCC COP30 Outcomes Summary Report, where GINGR is explicitly cited and linked. It was also highlighted by the High-Level Climate Champions during their closing event, signalling that integrating biodiversity and social outcomes into offshore wind is no longer a niche discussion but a core element of implementation.

Throughout the conference, the paper informed interventions in key sessions across the Blue Zone. It underpinned discussions on ocean metrics in “Measuring What Matters: Advancing Ocean Metrics for a Nature- and People-Positive Energy Transition” the GINGR side event in the Ocean Pavilion, helped frame regional collaboration debates in the LATAM-focused “Ambition and collective action ‘Mutirão’”, and fed into the Global Offshore Wind Stocktake and the session on Aligning Oceans and Energy for Implementation of the Paris Agreement on Blue NDCs. The GINGR perspective was also brought into the COP30 Ocean Ministerial, where ministers explored how to move from ambition to implementation in a way that serves coastal communities and marine ecosystems together.

A key step toward the GINGR Framework

This white paper is a key building block in the GINGR Framework, which will present a roadmap for measuring contributions of renewables and grid infrastructure towards Nature- and People-Positive goals using methodologies, white papers, checklists, and, over time, common metrics, reporting guidance and technical support for pilot projects. Together, the elements of the GINGR Framework are designed to help governments, developers and financiers plan and report in a consistent way on biodiversity gains and co-created community benefits across wind, solar and grids.

The paper builds on the first two GINGR Navigators on Maritime Spatial Planning and Monitoring Biodiversity at Sea, and their accompanying checklists. The Maritime Spatial Planning Navigator and checklist give planners and authorities clear principles and questions to guide Nature- and People-Positive offshore wind siting and sea use. The Monitoring Navigator and checklist show how to design robust, science-based marine biodiversity monitoring and how to use the results in both public decision-making and company reporting. This white paper brings these strands together and shows how good planning and strong monitoring fit within the wider Framework and its future metrics.

It is also closely aligned with the OCEaN report on Avoidance and Minimisation of Environmental Impacts from Offshore Wind and Grid Infrastructure, which lists dozens of concrete measures across the project life cycle and puts the first steps of the mitigation hierarchy into practice. By drawing on this detailed guidance, the white paper links what is already working at sea with a broader Nature-Positive roadmap for the energy sector and helps prepare the ground for a global standard that the GINGR Framework can apply across regions, technologies and value chains.

Acknowledgements and next steps

Integrating Nature into Offshore Wind Development was prepared by Ocean Conservancy, as chair of the GINGR Technical Working Group on Offshore, and authored by Amy Finalyson and Shamini Selvaratnam. The publication reflects the experience and insight of a diverse group of experts from organisations including the Royal Academy of Engineering, The Nature Conservancy, the World Economic Forum, Ørsted, the Global Offshore Wind Alliance, and the Renewables Grid Initiative, working alongside the GINGR Secretariat to position offshore wind as a demonstrator of a Nature- and People-Positive energy transition at sea.

GINGR itself is a collaborative initiative of the Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), created to help governments, regulators, industry, and finance translate high-level commitments into clear, practical requirements for planning, tenders, project design, monitoring and investment.

We warmly invite policymakers, regulators, offshore wind developers, grid operators, port authorities, financial institutions, communities and civil society organisations to read and share the white paper, use its recommendations in their own strategies and processes, and connect with the GINGR Offshore Working Group as we move towards piloting and implementing the GINGR Framework.

By engaging with this work now, stakeholders can help ensure that the rapid expansion of offshore wind delivers real, measurable benefits for ocean biodiversity and for the people whose lives and livelihoods depend on healthy seas.

Explore GINGR Publications