Benj Sykes, VP, UK Manager & Head of Environment, Consenting & External Affairs at Ørsted discusses how the energy industry can support biodiversity.
The United Nations found that more than a million species are threatened with extinction, alongside a need to triple the world’s renewable energy capacity by 2030.
From the outside, these don’t look like they can be tackled together – but the amount of land that will be required to meet the renewable energy supply needed makes these interconnected challenges.
Ørsted is the largest energy company in Denmark and produces more than 90% of its energy around the world from renewable sources.
Benj Sykes is Ørsted’s Vice President, UK Country Manager and Head of Environment, Consenting & External Affairs.
He joined the company in 2019 from the Carbon Trust where he was Director of Innovation.
Benj shares his expertise with us.
Why is the renewable energy sector relevant to biodiversity?
The climate and biodiversity crises are two urgent and deeply interconnected challenges that need to be met swiftly and on a global scale.
At Ørsted we can see that renewable energy is firmly at the intersection of these challenges. If done right, the energy transition offers unique potential to be a force for good on both fronts – but it must be delivered responsibly and sustainably.
It’s imperative that the green energy solutions we’re delivering on the journey to net zero will also contribute to ecosystem health and deliver positive outcomes from the communities where these projects are being built – and that we can measure how we’re doing on both fronts.
Restoring biodiversity is one of the most powerful tools we have to fight climate change, after moving to a world free from fossil fuels. Healthy habitats can mitigate climate change and help adapt to its effects.
As the global leader in offshore wind with over 30 years of experience, we’ve made tackling the climate crisis our core business. But we want our renewable energy solutions to do more than generate clean, affordable, secure green energy.
So we’ve set an ambition that all new renewable energy assets we commission from 2030 onwards should have a net-positive biodiversity impact.
This means that we’ll not only avoid, minimise and compensate for any impact on nature during the lifetime of our projects – we’ll also actively help restore and enhance habitats and ecosystems.
How can the wind energy industry drive biodiversity change?
Since making our net-positive biodiversity pledge, we’ve been working hard to develop methods to make good on our promise.
We don’t have all the answers, but we are committed to finding lasting, scalable, sustainable solutions – and collaboration with local partners, governments and NGOs is key.
We’ve recently launched a new framework for measuring our impact on biodiversity. This novel framework incorporates the complex landscape of sustainability reporting requirements, local regulations and cross-sector coalitions, so we can turn our ambition into measurable action.
We’re currently inviting feedback on the framework, so we can accelerate industry and wider stakeholder consensus on how to take measurable action for nature. We need consensus on how to measure and report the impact of renewable energy, across both onshore and offshore assets, to show our work and stay accountable.
In addition, the new framework allows us to build on our global programme of pilot projects we’re already running. Our Wilder Humber project, in partnership with both the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Wildlife Trusts, is restoring biodiversity around the UK’s Humber Estuary, planting seagrass, restoring saltmarsh and creating a biogenic reef using native oysters.
It’s one of many pilot projects we’re working on around the globe to help inform what methods we can scale in a wide range of ecosystems to support long-term benefits to nature.
We’re also testing out innovative ways to support warm water coral reefs with our ReCoral project in Taiwan and exploring the potential of marine rewilding in the Netherlands with our partners ARK Nature.
This toolbox of pilot projects demonstrates the huge range of ideas we need to explore as offshore wind accelerates globally into new ecosystems and communities.
From a wider policy and regulatory perspective, the new government’s ambition to accelerate the deployment of offshore wind to deliver clean power by 2030 means that the UK is, once again, going to have to take the lead on creating a regulatory framework that can deliver this whilst also improving the biodiversity in our seas and coastline. Any new policies must not only protect but also enhance the biodiversity in our seas.
It’s a big challenge, but also a big opportunity to deliver for nature.
What are your reflections from COP16?
As a company on a mission to deliver a world that runs entirely on green energy, we know that both environmental and social sustainability are key to delivering that.
So we want to have a voice in the conversation around shaping how the world responds to the biodiversity crisis and show others what real action looks like, and that’s why we were at COP16.
We’re one of the leading energy companies, if not the leading energy company, in tackling biodiversity – many others have stated ambitions on biodiversity, but we’re taking action in a way others aren’t yet.
One of the main takeaways for me was the much stronger presence of private sector companies this time around compared to CBD COP15 in Montreal two years ago. As with the climate crisis, action on biodiversity will ultimately need to be delivered by the private sector, and it was encouraging to see business engagement taking root – and, of course, to hear from others that Ørsted’s work on this vital agenda is seen as world-leading.
A real highlight for me was hearing Razan Al Mubarak, President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, single us out in her opening address in the Oceans Day Plenary.
Hearing Ørsted being name-checked as a company taking action on biodiversity in front of such a passionate, global, and influential audience was a great endorsement for the work we’re doing.
