Applying for an assessment of reasonable equivalence - existing BioBanking credits obligation

How to apply for an assessment of reasonable equivalence for an existing BioBanking credit obligation.

To apply for an assessment of reasonable equivalence for a BioBanking credit obligation you should have your final development consent.

You should then complete the Application for an Assessment of Reasonable Equivalence of Biodiversity Credits – credit obligation form (DOC 60KB).

The Authority to sign and proof of identity practice guideline outlines the legal authority required by a person to execute an application for assessment of reasonable equivalence of biodiversity credits and the documentation required to prove the identity of those persons.

  1. When completing the form, you may use information contained in the Credit Calculator report used to inform the final BioBanking credit obligation. You should quote the reference number of the credit calculation or attach the report to your application. You may use an accredited assessor to compile the information for you. See the Accredited Assessor Public Register for more details.
  2. The completed form should be submitted with any other required attachments to the Department of Planning and Environment (the department) through Biodiversity Offsets Scheme support.
  3. The Environment Agency Head (EAH) or a delegate of the EAH will consider the reasonable equivalence of BioBanking credits on a case by case basis using the information supplied in the application form.
  4. The Commonwealth Government can now accept payments into the Biodiversity Conservation Fund for developments that are a controlled action under the provisions of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Commonwealth) through the bilateral agreement between the Commonwealth of Australia and the State of New South Wales. More details can be found on the Australian Government's New South Wales Bilateral Agreement Information webpage. 

Receiving a statement of reasonable credit equivalence – BioBanking credit obligation

Once your application is processed, we will issue you with a Statement of Reasonable Credit Equivalence. The written statement sets out the number and class of BioBanking credits that are reasonably equivalent under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (BC Act) Biodiversity Offsets Scheme (BOS).

If you plan to make a payment into the Biodiversity Conservation Fund in order to discharge your credit obligation you will need to calculate the amount you should pay using the information on your Statement of Reasonable Credit Equivalence and the Biodiversity Offsets Payment Calculator to calculate the amount.

If you then want to make a payment into the Biodiversity Conservation Fund you should contact the Biodiversity Conservation Trust.

The Biodiversity Conservation Trust (BCT) will process your application, and after payment, will issue you a certificate under section 6.33 of the BC Act. The certificate is evidence for the decision maker that your credit obligation has been discharged.

Assessment of an application for reasonable equivalence process – BioBanking credit obligation

When a request for reasonable equivalence is made for the purpose of determining the reasonably equivalent BOS credit obligation from an existing BioBanking credit obligation, we will first consider whether there are matching BioBanking credits that are issued or pending on the BioBanking public register – Credits register. This means that biodiversity credits set out in the existing BioBanking credit obligation can be retired using credits that have been created under the BioBanking Assessment Methodology i.e. the reasonable equivalence ratio will be 1:1.

If there are no matching BioBanking credits available, we will apply one of the methods below.

In all cases, we will process the whole original BioBanking obligation and provide a ratio if required to help the applicant calculate equivalence for partial credits if required.

Calculations resulting in a value of 0 will be rounded up to 1.

We will determine the number and type of BOS ecosystem credits that are reasonably equivalent by applying the Biodiversity Assessment Methodology (BAM) biodiversity risk weighting as per BAM equation 1 to the approved area and existing condition of the vegetation from the Biodiversity Assessment Report (BAR). The class of credit will be updated using information from the BAR.

We will determine the number and type of BOS species credits (fauna) that are reasonably equivalent by applying the BAM biodiversity risk weighting as per BAM equation 2 to the approved area and existing condition of fauna habitat from the BAR.

We will determine the number and type of BOS species credits (flora) that are reasonably equivalent by applying the BAM biodiversity risk weighting as per BAM equation 2 to the approved area and existing condition of flora habitat from the BAR and/or application form.

We will determine the number and type of BOS species credits (flora) that are reasonably equivalent by applying the BAM biodiversity risk weighting as per BAM equation 3 to the approved number of individuals of the species from the BAR.