Professor Yvonne Buckley:

Greenwashing is a threat to proper implementation of and gaining the benefits from what we are doing here. This is related to one of the points I made in my submission. We must have effective monitoring of what we are doing. It is all very well to say one has planted many trees, but if those trees do not survive, are in the wrong place, grow too slowly or they do not accumulate the benefits we assume they are accumulating, it may be pointless. Saying one is taking that action is insufficient. We need appropriate monitoring and auditing of the solutions we put in place, with data transparency. There is nowhere to hide these days with remote sensing. We can count individual trees and monitor their growth from year to year. It is getting harder to make claims that are unsupported by data.

We must put in place the mechanisms and processes now to ensure we keep everybody honest in the claims they are making about what they are doing in regard to nature-based solutions, in particular, and in terms of actions for biodiversity. There should be no dark corners in which to hide with regard to our monitoring and auditing of the effectiveness of these solutions.