Green Assist: experimenting biodiversity certificates in Seine-Normandy wetlands

Testing certification approaches for nature-positive actions in the Seine-Normandy basin

Wetlands provide critical services for people and nature, such as water purification, flood control, carbon storage, and biodiversity support. Yet they continue to decline due to pollution, land-use change, and climate pressures. Against this backdrop, a pilot initiative coordinated by the French Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Seine-Normandy Water Agency is exploring how biodiversity certificates might offer a new pathway for supporting and recognising voluntary conservation efforts.

The project focuses on a range of wetland sites within the Seine-Normandy basin. It tests whether biodiversity-friendly actions, such as restoration, low-intensity grazing, and the conservation of semi-natural habitats, can be measured and validated under a certification process. The objective is not to create a tradable asset, but rather to explore how certification might serve as a signal of environmental benefit and thus a building block for incentive schemes.

Through this pilot, local stakeholders, including farmers, land managers, and public authorities, are invited to participate in a collaborative effort to develop operational knowledge on biodiversity monitoring, baseline setting, and verification practices adapted to wetland contexts.

How Green Assist contributed

Green Assist provided targeted expertise to support the early design of the pilot. Green Assist experts contributed to:

• Clarifying the methodological approach;
• Exploring the feasibility of certification in complex wetland ecosystems;
• Identifying possible connections with broader biodiversity finance initiatives in France and at EU level. 

The work also included reflections on monitoring needs, alignment with existing policies, and ways to involve land managers without creating undue complexity.

This pilot is one of several exploratory efforts being carried out in the EU to examine the practicalities and potential of certification tools for recognising and rewarding voluntary biodiversity improvements.

"Green Assist, by combining technical expertise and adaptability to local conditions, plays a key role in designing and supporting a market-based mechanism that aims to remunerate farmers through private funding for their wetland conservation and restoration actions. It is involved at every stage of this pilot project, ensuring its consistency with existing public policies in order to strengthen its impact on biodiversity."

French Ministry of Ecological Transition, Biodiversity, Forests, Sea and Fisheries

"The support provided by Green Assist made it possible to organise and structure discussions and reflections on the major issues related to the experiment; beyond the working method, the technical expertise on this complex subject was particularly useful and facilitated the appropriation of the subject by the stakeholders."

Sandrine ROCARD, Director General of the Seine Normandy Water Agency.