Biodiversity Credit Point System (IP-Suisse)

The Biodiversity Credit Point System is a tool that can be used by farmers to review their effort to support biodiversity on their own farm. Since it is nearly impossible for farmers to quantify biodiversity on their farms, a tool was developped allowing them to assess the measures they take to enhance biodiversity, the Credit Point System (CPS). The CPS was designed to compose a wide range of options with which farmers can positively influence biodiversity on their farms. The CPS consists of a catalogue of 32 such options. Farmers can “score points” by applying these measures on their farms. The majority of them are options from the Swiss agri-environment scheme, so called Ecological Compensation Areas (ECAs, i.e. extensively managed meadows, hedges, wildflower and rotational fallows etc.). Additionally, ecological quality and size of individual ECAs are also recorded, according to the ‘quality’ and ‘connectivity scheme’ (Ordinance for Ecological Quality). Further, application of arable and grassland options (e.g. no herbicide application, staggered mowing etc.) as well as for the conservation of genetic diversity (heritage breeds/heirloom crops) yield points. The point assignment accounts for farm size, i.e. points are assigned for the proportion of a given measure.

The scores are weighted according to their known (expert-based) benefit for biodiversity, i.e. larger-sized meadows will yield more points than smaller ones and meadows with a high ecological quality (according to the ‘quality scheme’) more than those without. The weighting is based on results of studies addressing (i) the monitoring of agri-environment schemes (AES), (ii) farming intensity, (iii) landscape and habitat heterogeneity, (iv) nature conservation measures for (endangered) target species, (v) own data sets, and is supplemented by expert knowledge. At the end, the CPS returns one single total point score for each farm.