Compensatory measures are the focus of the second workshop on innovative financing organised by LIFE Stewardship

The LIFE Stewardship project has held a workshop focused on assessing the role of offset measures from renewable energy projects as a funding mechanism for conservation and restoration initiatives implemented through land stewardship agreements.

Organised by Fundación Global Nature (FGN), a project partner, this is the second meeting in a series of workshops dedicated to exploring innovative financing instruments applicable to land stewardship initiatives. The first workshop, held in Valencia on 15 January 2026, was dedicated to projects related to water footprint offsetting.

This session took place at the facilities of Fundación Ortega Marañón in Madrid and was attended by representatives from public administrations, companies in the energy sector and land stewardship organisations. Its aim was to develop a collaborative model in which land stewardship organisations act as key agents in the implementation of compensation measures linked to renewable energy projects.

Spain, moreover, presents a unique context in which private ownership plays a decisive role in nature conservation, with over 50% of biodiversity found on privately owned agricultural land. Consequently, any environmental compensation strategy linked to the deployment of renewable energy necessarily requires the active participation of the agro sector and land managers.

Given this and the lack of public funding, engaging the private sector through innovative financial instruments is essential. Regions such as Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha, both of which were represented at the workshop, have already begun to involve conservation organisations as key players in the implementation of offset measures linked to renewable energy projects.

The aim of these workshops on innovative financing under the LIFE Stewardship project is to promote pilot projects that are measurable, replicable and capable of demonstrating that innovative financing models applied to conservation work and can be scaled up.

LIFE STEWARDSHIP

The overall aim of the LIFE Stewardship project is to use land stewardship-based approaches to boost collaboration involving public and private entities as well as civil society for nature conservation and restoration in Spain, in the framework of the Europe Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and international agreements.

The project is coordinated by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Spanish Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, with the participation of Eurosite, the Forum of Land Stewardship Networks and Entities (FRECT), Global Nature Foundation (FGN), Fernando González Bernáldez/ Europarc-Spain Foundation, SEO/BirdLife and Nature Conservation Network (XCN) as partners. It has the financial contribution of the LIFE Programme of the European Union.