‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

Year
GJ per per
son
Combined Energy Input per capita
150.0
155.0
160.0
Trend
energy per capita

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327
Boxes
Box 41 Eco-service Offsets versus Credits
The following compares typical eco-service trading programs to the alternative approach of 
giving credits for design for eco-services, in relation to issues that have been raised regarding 
environmental trading systems.
Offsets Credits
Ensure the use of the right supports for eco-services
Mitigative actions to protect a species can be 
undone by unexpected changes in context:
• 
Fire can change the sequestration value 
of the forest and web of biodiversity
• 
Small biodiversity areas can be wiped
out by disease, cyclones or temperature
change
Design for eco-services (DES) in urban 
areas would increase ecosystem resilience:
• 
Fires and floods generally do not wipe
out whole cities, so species could
escape disasters
• 
DES can moderate even regional
climate change and would reduce the
urban heat sink
Ensure the rights are well defined
Eco-services for trading have been hard to 
define:
• 
Wrong ecology: Planting plantations or 
geo-sequestration could disrupt bio- 
diversity (as a monoculture) or be in the
wrong place 
• 
Long-term issues (eg salinity, global
warming and groundwater pollution)
are unknown and can take decades
to manifest 
• 
Most offsets are for what we are going
to do in the future, not what we have
done, so there is no net gain
The nature and extent of the DES credit 
would be straightforward to define: meters 
allocated to nature ecosystems and ser-
vices per building floor area, per capita or 
per lot size.
• 
DES in urban areas could create a
diverse gene pool and not a monocul 
tural approach
• 
Any errors in biodiversity in urban
DES are not likely to affect natural
areas in the hinterland
• 
DES would add ecosystems to
existing cities as well as new buildings
for net ecological gain