Biodiversity Conservation Fund Charge System – What’s New?
The Biodiversity Conservation Fund Charge System — or the BCF Charge System — replaced the Biodiversity Offset Payment Calculator (BOPC) on the 17th of October 2022. This change was approved by the NSW Minister for the Environment and Heritage, and the creation of the new BCF Charge System was informed by an extensive stakeholder consultation process (beginning with a review and assessment of the older BOPC system). The change was made to improve the calculations that help developers offset their biodiversity impact.
But what exactly is the Biodiversity Conservation Fund Charge System, and what is it for? East Coast Ecology is here to break it down. We’ll explain what the BCF Charge System is, why the BOPC was replaced, what the difference is between the two systems, and what this all means for development projects with biodiversity impacts in 2023.
What is the Biodiversity Conservation Fund Charge System?
The Biodiversity Conservation Fund Charge System is a reliable and accurate way for developers in New South Wales to calculate the charges they pay to offset the biodiversity impact of their projects — and reduce their environmental impact and support biodiversity conservation. The BCF Charge System encourages private landowners and public entities alike to engage in conservation efforts — and to compensate for any unavoidable (or irreversible) effects that their development projects have on biodiversity.
How does the BCF Charge System Work?
The BCF Charge System optimises the benefits previously gained by biodiversity credits — which are created by landowners who manage their land in a way that benefits biodiversity. When undertaking a project that will have an unavoidable impact on biodiversity, developers can buy and retire the required biodiversity credits from landowners who have generated them through their Biodiversity Stewardship Agreements (BSA). The biodiversity credits retired by a developer effectively help to offset the loss of biodiversity by ensuring that there are gains generated elsewhere.
The BCF Charge System determines the charge that a developer pays to the Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT) — therefore more accurately predicting the cost the BCT incurs through purchasing biodiversity credits from landowners. The BCT uses money from the developer to buy and manage land for conservation purposes — thereby ensuring that the money from developers offsets their biodiversity impact and counterbalances the effects on the environment in NSW.
Why Was the Biodiversity Offset Payment Calculator Replaced?
The NSW Government commissioned a review of the Biodiversity Offset Payment Calculator in 2020, which found that the BOPC needed to be more fit for its purpose and generate less volatile and more accurate results. Not only that, but the BOPC was often inaccurate — its answers were based on a number of assumptions, which were not always correct.
The BCF Charge System, introduced as a replacement model in 2022, is a less automated process with a much higher degree of judgement than the BOPC — with a calculation of the charges directly from the BCT, ensuring that developers get a more accurate and reliable estimate of the charges they must pay to the BCT to offset the biodiversity impact of their development projects.
What’s the difference between the Biodiversity Offset Payment & Biodiversity Conservation Fund Charge System?
There are several critical differences between the Biodiversity Offset Payment (BOP) and the Biodiversity Conservation Fund Charge System (BCF Charge System). Here’s a quick comparison between the two:
Biodiversity Offset Payment Calculator (BOPC)
Developers purchased biodiversity credits from a registered provider.
Biodiversity credit pricing was determined by supply and demand and landowners’ requirements.
The BOPC gave developers instantaneous access to a calculation of the charge to fulfil their offset obligation.
To offset their impact on biodiversity, developers retired their biodiversity credits, paying the charge to the BCF.
Biodiversity Conservation Fund Charge System (BCF Charge System)
If the developer has developmental consent — including a requirement to retire biodiversity credits — they can seek a quote from the BCT to pay into the Biodiversity Conservation Fund (BCF).
The BCT issues an accurate price estimation within ten working days for small projects and 30 working days for large projects — or longer, based on an agreement between the developer and the BCT.
Developers pay a charge to the Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT) when undergoing development with a biodiversity offset obligation.
The charge is based on the impact of the development on biodiversity.
The BCT uses the money from developers to acquire and manage land for conservation purposes.
Benefits of the BCF Charge System
The new BCF Charge System offers these primary benefits to developers:
The process uses a higher level of judgement than the BOPC.
The results are more accurate — coming straight from the BCT — than the BOPC.
The Impact of the BCF Charge System on Biodiversity Conservation
The BCF Charge System is designed to optimise biodiversity credit transfer and use and to provide greater certainty for participants in biodiversity preservation and irreversible development projects. The credit pricing calculations from the BCF Charge System reflect the costs to landholders of generating biodiversity credits — and to the BCT, who purchase these credits.
Reduce Biodiversity Impact with East Coast Ecology
If you have evidence of a potential credit obligation, you can request a quote from the Biodiversity Conservation Trust to calculate the cost of offsetting your impacts. To reduce your environmental impact on biodiversity, consulting professional ecological services from expert environmental scientists is also an excellent idea. East Coast Ecology offers services across NSW, such as our Environmental Impact Assessment and Biodiversity Development Assessment Report, designed to help you assess the biodiversity impact of your developments and make informed decisions and mitigation methods to reduce your environmental impact on biodiversity.