Award of RESAS/015/25 - ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION CODE (ERC) ACADEMIC PEER REVIEW

The ERC is a complex and innovative piece of Scottish Government (SG) policy and project development work. Developing a new market mechanism for nature / biodiversity that fully integrates high-integrity principles is a highly technical exercise spanning issues of biodiversity and ecosystem science, ecological survey / data and monitoring, governance, and economics, to name a few.Further information on our considerations to date in terms of what is likely to be required for the development of Scottish nature / biodiversity markets can be found in our Ecosystem Restoration Code (ERC) Engagement Paper, published in May 2025.Because of the above, the SG-NatureScot ERC project team has some key technical expertise gaps that will need to be filled to help continue our work on developing a “competent model” for an ERC by January 2026. These are as follows:1. Designing the overall structure and scope of high-integrity nature market codes and standards;2. Technical and scientific advice on high-integrity metrics and measurement approaches for biodiversity and ecosystem condition in the context of nature markets and nature related risks and dependencies to business ;3. Technical and scientific advice on high-integrity tests of additionality for nature markets; and4. Technical and scientific advice on high-integrity approaches to stacking and bundling options for nature markets.