‘Better than Doing Nothing’ – constructing support for biodiversity offsetting in Finland

Abstract

Despite widely covered controversies, biodiversity offsetting continues to be introduced in novel places as a solution to counter biodiversity loss. As previous studies have focused on contestation around offsetting, there is a lack of studies analyzing how actors generate consensus while constructing biodiversity offsetting policies. To assess this, we analyze the early phases of policy construction in Finland, a country that until recently did not have policy mechanisms for offsetting in place. Based on document analysis and interviews with experts, we argue that expert stakeholders’ widespread support for biodiversity offsetting is explained by the interplay of three framings in the early phase of policy development. First, expert stakeholders share an understanding of biodiversity offsetting as a necessary policy mechanism to which there are no alternative solutions. Second, divergent views on the mechanism are accommodated through maintaining an interpretatively flexible understanding of the policy mechanism. Third, concerns over past policy failures are refurbished as opportunities to learn from in developing an experimental approach to policy implementation. This designates offsetting primarily as an expert issue for technical deliberation and forecloses other policy options, while placing high expectations on the ability of experimental governance to solve problems.