Strategic Compensation Pilots for Offshore Wind

Status: Active

Start Date: September 2023

Lead Organisation: Offshore Wind Industry Council (OWIC)

This project is aimed at providing effective strategic compensation solutions to address the environmental impacts associated with offshore wind projects, particularly those that cannot be avoided or mitigated. It seeks to deliver a shared body of evidence encompassing best practices, research findings, and practical pilot projects for offshore wind compensation focusing on investment in four target measures:

• Artificial nesting for seabirds – increasing the evidence bases, including onshore or offshore structure and opportunities for re-use of oil and gas platforms.
• Habitat restoration and creation.
• Predation reduction – this can involve exclusion zones around protected seabird colonies and biosecurity programmes to improve seabird breeding success.
• Removal of defunct infrastructure.