Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) is a climate mitigation practice that reduces carbon emissions through documented changes to forest protection and management practices. Since forests are important repositories of carbon, reducing deforestation or improving forest management can avoid the emissions of carbon. REDD+ can secure financing for protecting forests and for enhancing sustainable forestry practices. Currently available through voluntary carbon markets, REDD+ projects may be part of national compliance mechanisms in the near future. REDD+ projects seek to include biodiversity and social criteria in their design and implementation and are a very cost effective means to climate mitigation.

Financial or other compensation paid by companies, private individuals, or governments for planned environmental damage as part of infrastructure or project development. Compensation levels and forms of compensation are usually determined by law and can be fixed amounts, calculated relative to investment or company sizes, or based on remediation costs and economic damages.  

Climate crediting mechanisms, like other carbon market mechanisms, enable entities, for which the cost of reducing emissions is high, to pay low-cost emitters for carbon credits that they can use towards meeting their emission-reduction obligations, or for voluntary or trading purposes. These mechanisms-e.g. the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)-put a price on carbon, helping to internalize the environmental and social costs of carbon pollution, and permit trading, which lowers the economic cost of reducing emissions.

Carbon markets aim to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cost-effectively by setting limits on emissions and enabling trading of emission units (instruments representing emission reductions). Trading enables entities that can reduce emissions at low cost to be paid to do so by high-cost emitters, thus lowering the economic cost of reducing emissions. Carbon markets can include emission allocation credits as well as emission reduction credits such as carbon offset credits. In various carbon markets, forest or agricultural based offset credits may be used to offset industrial emission

The fee charged to the importer of biological material into a country. It can be used to recover the expenditures of the national agency mandated with preventing alien invasive species (AIS), health threats and other agricultural pests from entering certain geographical areas. Mostly used in island states. It can also be part of an import duty or fee.

Bioprospecting is the systematic search for biochemical and genetic material in nature in order to develop commercially-valuable products for pharmaceutical, agricultural, cosmetic and other applications. The rationale is to extract the maximum commercial value from genetic resources and indigenous knowledge, while creating a fair compensation system that can benefit all.

Measurable conservation outcome resulting from a trading system (or market) where offset credits are tradable units of exchange defined by the ecological value associated with verifiable changes and management of a natural wetland habitat. A mitigation bank is a wetland, stream, or other aquatic resource area that has been restored and preserved for the purpose of providing compensation for expected adverse impacts to similar ecosystems nearby. The value of a bank is defined in compensatory mitigation credits that can be traded or sold. Most systems are designed for no net loss of wetlands even following residual development impacts.

Measurable conservation outcome resulting from a trading system (or market) where nutrient reduction credits are established and traded. These credits can have a monetary value that may be paid to the seller for utilising management practices that reduce nitrogen, phosphorous, or sediment. In general, water quality trading utilizes a market-based approach that allows one source of water pollution to maintain its regulatory obligations by using pollution reductions created by another source. Trades can take place between point sources (e.g. wastewater treatment plants), between point and nonpoint sources (e.g. a wastewater treatment plant and a farming operation) or between nonpoint sources (such as agriculture and urban stormwater sites or systems). Systems can be voluntary or compliance.

Measurable conservation outcome resulting from an exchange system (or market) where offset credits can be accumulated and sold to developers to compensate for their species or habitat impacts. Credits are tradable units of exchange defined by the ecological value associated with intentional changes or management of a natural habitat. Biobanking includes habitat banking and species banking and is usually focused on endangered habitats and species. Biobanking shares certain features with tradable permit schemes whereby an objective of no net loss of biodiversity is established and provides developers with flexibility to determine either to invest in their own compensation or offset or to purchase a credit that has been developed by others (environmental banks). 

Measurable conservation outcomes resulting from actions designed to compensate for significant residual biodiversity loss arising from project development after appropriate prevention and mitigation measures have been taken. Offsets can, for example, deliver biodiversity benefits (e.g. reforestation) through a transaction, where offset sellers (e.g. a conservation NGO) sell offsets to developers (e.g. a mining company) who seek to compensate the residual biodiversity loss. Offsets have been established in the agriculture, forest, construction, manufacturing and mining sectors. The aggregating of offsets under a policy framework can optimise the biodiversity benefit by increasing ecosystem connectivity, preventing future habitat fragmentation and creating large contiguous sites.