EMA Newsletter – April 2026
Ceo Introduction: What Matters
It has been another busy quarter for Eco-Markets in a global environment that points towards verified credits as the premium natural capital asset class. Defensible, measurable, and verified nature outcomes are now the baseline expectation for organizations either reporting through ESG or TNFD frameworks, or as an approach to manage nature risk in businesses.
Finally, as outlined in my recent article listed in this newsletter, ENVOMARK credits represent the best and most promising vehicle to manage quality offset requirements under the new EPBC Act. They represent the best like-for-like and time-for-time option, removing the delivery risk in remediation plans or impact fines.
This increased appetite for credits must be aligned with government policies that reward the corporate “green premium”—another topic I address in our first of a series of emerging thought pieces. I encourage our followers to engage with these themes via LinkedIn as we continue to shape the conversation.
Our market expansion activities in water, biodiversity, and cultural credits continue at pace with strong market pull for Standards, methodologies and new revenue model. This too reflects a broader market shift toward outcomes-based solutions for scalable investment.
The company’s leadership in markets was recently recognized by the international Environmental Markets Conference held in the USA in April, where Eco-Markets and Aurecon were invited to host a session on Australian markets for a US audience.
Finally, Eco-Markets, Noviqtech, and Hedera have partnered to develop a fully digitized market and registry platform. By leveraging Noviqtech’s Carbon Central framework and Hedera’s Guardian infrastructure, this collaboration is set to deliver the world’s most secure and engaging digital nature markets platform. — Dr Goslik Schepers
CEO, Eco-Markets
From the CEO: Lifting Environmental Repair Through High-Integrity Markets
Environmental repair is currently funded through discretionary, grant-based activity. Unfortunately, this approach is not keeping up with nature degradation. Funding nature only becomes scalable when it is structured around verified outcomes.
By unlocking corporate investment into measurable environmental improvements with clear economic value, outcomes can be priced, verified and transacted. High-integrity ENVOMARK credits are central to this shift. Issued only after the environmental outcomes has been achieved and independently verified, they provide a like-for-like, time-for-time solution that remediates unavoidable impacts with certainty, removing delivery risk and eliminating reliance on future promises.
Government plays a critical role in realigning policy settings to support this transition. By applying a risk-of-failure adjustment to remediation promises and fines, high-integrity credits become the most cost efficient and credible pathway for compliance. Ultimately, directing offset fees and fines into a Markets Activation Fund further reduces project risk, accelerates credit supply and creates a self-sustaining funding mechanism that crowds in corporate capital. This is how environmental repair shifts from a public cost centre to a scalable, shared investment asset class.
To read the full article, please visit our website or our LinkedIn page on Eco-Markets Australia
EMA TAC Chair talks Separating CO-benefits through ENVOMARK Credits
Bob Speirs (Chair, EMA Technical Advisory Committee) outlines how high-integrity environmental credits for co-benefits can unlock additional investment in nature-based projects.
Under the ENVOMARK framework, differentiated environmental outcomes can be delivered, quantified and independently verified, increasing nature outcomes an optionality through voluntary markets.
By enabling differentiated environmental co-benefits to be recognised and traded, can reduce project costs, attract new investment, and scale outcomes across carbon, biodiversity and water markets
For the full article, please go to Publications– Separating Co- Benefits through ENVOMARK Credits
Key Updates
Reef Credits Registry
14
Projects
65,903
Credits Issued
42,055
Credits Retired
There are currently 20,140 Reef Credits available on the registry.
As the independent administrator of the Reef Credit Scheme, Eco-Markets Australia ensures the integrity of the scheme through robust oversight and effective management of the Eco-Markets Australia Registry. This platform transparently tracks all approved projects and verified outcomes, enabling the secure issuance, transfer, and retirement of credits.
While we oversee these processes, Eco-Markets Australia remains independent from the commercial transactions between buyers and sellers and does not set credit prices.
For more information on Reef Credits currently available for purchase, or to learn more about the buying process, please contact the Eco-Markets Australia Secretariat team.
Cassowary Credits Registry
2
Projects
0
Credits Issued
0
Credits Retired
The Cassowary Credit Biodiversity Credit Market launched on 22nd May 2025. Under this program credits are only issued after the first 2 years of project activities. This is to ensure that credits are only issued based on real, verified and measured outcomes, providing confidence to credit buyers.
As the independent administrator of the Reef Credit Scheme, Eco-Markets Australia ensures the integrity of the scheme through robust oversight and effective management of the Eco-Markets Australia Registry. This platform transparently tracks all approved projects and verified outcomes, enabling the secure issuance, transfer, and retirement of credits.
While we oversee these processes, Eco-Markets Australia remains independent from the commercial transactions between buyers and sellers and does not set credit prices.
For more information on Cassowary Credits and to discuss the credit buying process, please contact the Eco-Markets Australia Secretariat team.
Industry Engagement and Events
Eco-Markets Australia continues to engage with industry leaders, sharing insights from our work. Recent highlights and upcoming activities include:
Recent Highlights
Wilmot Field Day,
In March, Dr Schepers represented Eco-Markets at Australia’s leading regenerative farming field day at Wilmot farm near Armidale. This two-day event showcases national and international farming techniques, technology, and funding strategies, encouraging farmers to work more in concert with nature than mechanistically attempting to control it with high-intensity farming. It was pleasing to see a room full of Australia’s leading agricultural farmers engaged in carbon and nature credit investment
Connected by Water Conference, Australian Water Association, Perth,
Head of Programs Amy Basnett presented on Nature Credit Markets as a scalable mechanism for sustainable water infrastructure and ecosystem restoration in Western Australia. The opportunity to activate an ENVOMARK integrity assured market under the Australasian Catchment Water Improvement Standard (ACWIS) was also explored.
DPI Community of Practice Workshop and Field Day,
Program Officer Kate Sammon attended the Treatment Systems Community of Practice workshop under the Queensland Reef Water Quality Program. EMA presented its ENVOMARK Value Nature Framework, with strong interest in its role in supporting emerging markets. Site visits demonstrated established ecosystem benefits and nutrient offsets in practice.
Looking Ahead: Australia’s Nature Markets Go Global
Eco-Markets and Aurecon are co-hosting an Australian Session at the Environmental Markets Conference (EMC) in Chattanooga Tennessee this April.
With Australia’s environmental markets reaching a pivotal stage of maturity, this conference session will explore what that evolution means in practice across carbon, biodiversity, and water.
Speakers will trace the journey from foundational federal frameworks—such as the ACCU Scheme and the Nature Repair Market—through to state‑based and place‑based markets that are delivering measurable outcomes.
Using Reef Credits as a flagship example, the discussion will highlight the critical role that offset‑based compliance markets play in creating price signals, demand certainty and scale—alongside voluntary ESG- driven investment.
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Presentations will be followed by a panel session inviting Bill Dennison, Vice President for Science Application for the University of Maryland Centre for Environmental Science and Chair of the Chesapeake Bay Program, and Tim Degraff, Regional Manager for the Western States at Resource Environmental Solutions (RES). The panel will look ahead to how these markets can expand and integrate, drawing on lessons from Australia and the United States.
Practitioners and policymakers will compare voluntary and regulated markets, explore innovations in water and biodiversity trading, and examine how compliance markets and corporate demand can work together to unlock blended investment pathways for nature repair.
With perspectives from leading market operators and international experts, the conversation will focus on trust, integrity and collaboration—and what is needed to scale nature credit markets that deliver lasting environmental, economic and community outcomes in the lead‑up to the Brisbane Olympics 2032 and beyond.
Technical Updates
ACWIS GLM Public Consultation Closing Soon
Through the ENVOMARK Value Nature Framework, Eco Markets (EMA) invites your feedback on the Australasian Catchment Water Improvement Standard (ACWIS) Method for Accounting Fine Sediment Abatement Through Improved Grazing Land Management (GLM) v1.0.
This methodology provides a nationally consistent, scientifically robust framework for quantifying fine sediment (FS) reductions achieved through improved grazing land management. It builds on the previously approved Reef Credit GLM Method, which underwent extensive peer review and public consultation, and adapts it for broader national application under ACWIS.
Fine sediment is one of the major contributors to water quality decline in Australian catchments. When mobilised from hillslopes, FS reduces water clarity, damages freshwater and marine ecosystems, and diminishes the resilience of downstream habitats.
Continue reading
Many catchments are affected by accelerated erosion exacerbated by land use pressures, particularly grazing. The GLM Method supports landholders to increase ground cover, reduce hillslope erosion, and improve catchment water quality, with eligible projects able to generate integrity assured ENVOMARK Credits.
Public consultation is a critical step in ensuring the Method is transparent, workable, and scientifically robust. Submissions will inform final revisions before ENVOMARK assurance and adoption under ACWIS.
Download the Methodology, Explanatory Statement, and Public Consultation Discussion Paper and Feedback form on the EMA Website – Public Consultations – Eco-Markets Australia
Submission deadline: 5PM AEST, 17 April 2026
Send submissions to: secretariat@eco-markets.org.au
Become an Approved Project Proponent with Eco-Markets
Eco-Markets is seeking interest from organisations and individuals considering a role as Project Proponent, key partners in delivering environmental outcomes across Australasia. Environmental markets are scaling quickly, with increasing demand for projects that create real, measurable benefits for nature. This growth is opening up new opportunities for people who can design and deliver high-quality, nature-based projects.
Project Proponents play a central role in Eco-Markets’ schemes. They work with landholders to plan and deliver environmental projects that meet our ENVOMARK Value Nature framework. This includes managing the full project life cycle from data collection and registration through to monitoring, credit generation, and sales. Project Proponents exist to help ensure projects deliver strong environmental outcomes while also creating economic value for landholders.
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EMA have developed a Project Proponent Guide informing on the journey to approval as a Project Proponent. The Project Proponent Guide contains information and tips which will assist in the decision around onboarding with EMA, which markets you are eligible to provide for and how to consider your business model, making your journey worthwhile for you. This will position your services as a valuable part of a landholder’s journey, supporting better outcomes for nature while also helping increase the economic value of their land through credit generation.
Following the approval of the Australasian Catchment Water Improvement Scheme (ACWIS) in late 2025, Eco-Markets is actively engaging Methodology developers and market participants to develop pilot projects across the region. The first methodology under ACWIS is progressing through the ENVOMARK assurance process and is expected to be approved in the near future. Interest from investors is strong, and there is a clear need for more Project Proponents to build a pipeline of projects and ongoing supply of environmental credits.
Approved Project Proponents may choose to develop Projects across a range of EMA approved methodologies, and elect to work under Reef Credits Scheme, Cassowary Credit Scheme, Australasian Catchment Water Improvement Scheme and future schemes such as the Australasian Biodiversity Improvement Scheme (in development).
If you’re interested in becoming a Project Proponent, contact the Eco-Markets Secretariat at secretariat@eco-markets.org.au. A copy of the Project Proponent Guide can be requested for more detailed information.
SUBMIT YOUR METHODOLOGY
Eco-Markets invites methodology developers to submit Methodologies following the ENVOMARK Methodology Application and Review Procedure.
Current Standards accepting new Methodologies include:
- LAUNCHED Australasian Catchment Water Improvement Standard (ACWIS)
- COMING SOON Australasian Biodiversity Improvement Standard (ABIS) – contact Secretariat
EMA Written Submissions
Active participation in policy and public consultation processes is critical to ensuring that the role of ENVOMARK natural capital credit markets is well understood and effectively integrated into government decision‑making.
By contributing evidence‑based insights from market design, implementation experience, and stakeholder engagement, EMA aims to help demonstrate how high‑integrity nature and water quality credit markets can mobilise private capital at the scale and pace required for nature repair, complementing public funding and regulatory approaches.
These submissions support governments to design enabling policy settings that recognise credible market mechanisms as delivery tools, reduce barriers to investment, and align environmental objectives with economic incentives. In doing so, EMA strengthens the policy foundation needed for natural capital markets to support national priorities while ensuring that emerging markets are robust, trusted, and aligned with long‑term environmental outcomes.
Recent Submissions:
- A fresh start for SEQ koalas: Developing a new South East Queensland Koala Conservation Strategy 2026–2036 discussion paper
- National Environmental Standards for Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) and Environmental Offsets – Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water
