Strategic Offsetting: Achieving Net Positive Impacts of Offshore Wind Energy on Seabirds

Overcoming the climate and biodiversity crises will require creative solutions and strategic policies. Offshore wind energy development is a major component of global renewable energy strategies, and its deployment is accelerating worldwide. However, if not implemented carefully, offshore wind energy development may also pose immediate threats to wildlife. Numerous discussions are underway to determine how offshore wind energy can be developed in a way that benefits biodiversity, but answering that question effectively at scale requires targeted interventions for impacts to particular taxa. 

To develop offshore wind energy responsibly, it is crucial to implement a comprehensive mitigation hierarchy that effectively addresses cumulative impacts via avoidance, minimisation, and offsetting (i.e., compensation for residual impacts via reduction of alternate threats to populations). 

This webinar will explore existing approaches to offsetting impacts to marine birds and outline needs for offsetting strategies to simultaneously facilitate renewable energy development and biodiversity conservation. 

Speakers

• Aspen Ellis, Seabird Ecologist, University of California - Santa Cruz

  Aspen is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a decade of experience in studying and managing seabird colonies on remote islands. Her research centres on creating effective compensatory mitigation strategies that allows offshore wind development to address long-term climate goals without compromising seabird populations.

  
  

• Aonghais Cook, Principal Consultant - Renewables, The Biodiversity Consultancy

  Aonghais works closely with developers, lenders, regulators and other organisations to better understand how to avoid, minimise and offset the impacts of renewable energy, particularly offshore wind farms, on biodiversity. He is particularly interested in investigating how to make better use of data and technology in order to support a sustainable and environmentally sensitive energy transition.

  
  

• Rachel Asante, Senior Programme Coordinator - Climate Change and Energy Transition, IUCN

  Rachel works with major extractive companies such as Rio Tinto, Shell and Vedanta Mining on measuring and reducing their impacts on biodiversity and natural resource-dependent communities.

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This webinar is delivered by the GINGR Technical Working Group on Metrics in association with The Biodiversity Consultancy, IUCN and the University of California - Santa Cruz. This webinar builds upon RGI's offshore work in collaboration with Members of the Offshore Coalition for Energy and Nature (OCEaN). See the OCEaN report on avoidance and minimisation of environmental impacts of offshore wind and grids here, and the RGI report on essential environmental concepts for offshore wind in Europe here.