Finland Widens Access to Its Nature Value Market Under Amended Nature Conservation Act

On 1 August 2026, an amendment (737/2026) to Finland's Nature Conservation Act (9/2023, "NCA") entered into force, allowing authority-verified nature value units to be used beyond ecological compensation for the first time. Previously, companies have been able to acquire nature value units for ecological compensation, offsetting the harm caused by the project elsewhere with equivalent nature value. The recent amendment allows companies, organisations and private individuals to purchase these units for voluntary nature actions without needing to show any prior harm.

The amendment is intended to enable companies to make a positive contribution to nature in connection with their sustainability reporting obligations or their own biodiversity targets. It also aims to mobilise private funding for nature restoration in order to achieve the goals of the EU Restoration Regulation.

Finland's nature value market is based on nature-value hectares: units representing the ecological improvement achieved by restoring, managing or protecting land. One hectare of land in its natural state, or comparable to its natural state, corresponds to one nature value hectare. The competent authority verifies the active restoration activity, protection of land or other similar nature value and registers the units as tradeable assets.

In the nature value market, landowners and other producers of nature values can offer them to buyers, including companies, public bodies, foundations, organisations and private individuals, who may need them for ecological compensation or wish to fund measures that enhance biodiversity.

Landowners retain ownership of the underlying land throughout the process, and selling a nature value does not transfer any interest in the land itself. However, once a produced nature value has been sold, the landowner may no longer destroy or degrade it. A permanent restriction is registered against the land and binds any future owner.

Until the recent amendment, nature-value hectares created in accordance with the NCA could only be used for ecological compensation – that is, to offset harm that a project or activity had already caused to nature. The amendment introduces the concept of "nature action", enabling companies to demonstrate corporate nature responsibility in situations where there is no direct link to the causing of harm, and ecological compensation is therefore not possible. Nature values produced through measures that increase nature values, as well as protection offsets (the permanent protection of a representative occurrence of a threatened habitat type), may both be used as a nature action. This mirrors the existing rules for ecological compensation and means a landowner does not need to run separate production processes for the two use cases.

The mitigation hierarchy applies to all buyers of nature values, but entities subject to the sustainability reporting obligation under the Accounting Act (1336/1997), whose operations have significant impacts on biodiversity, must be able to demonstrate compliance with the mitigation hierarchy before they may rely on a nature action – that is, they must first avoid and minimise the adverse impacts on biodiversity arising from their own operations and, where possible, compensate for any direct nature-related harm caused in Finland. Reporting entities must verify this through their sustainability reporting, either by demonstrating that the undertaking has no significant biodiversity impacts or, where such impacts are reported, that the undertaking follows the mitigation hierarchy.

A nature action requires approval from the Finnish Supervisory Agency (in Finnish: Lupa- ja valvontavirasto). In its decision approving a nature action, the Agency must prohibit the destruction and deterioration of nature values in the area where they were produced and define that area's boundaries; the prohibition takes effect once notified to the area's owners and holders, and is also noted in the land register. Once approved, the nature action is recorded in the authority's public register under the nature conservation information system, alongside existing entries for ecological compensation.

This Legal Alert is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. If you have any questions about this matter, please feel free to contact the undersigned or your regular contact.