Habitat banks in Colombia

In Colombia, one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, these mechanisms are gaining traction across sectors. At CMS Colombia, we advise clients on structuring habitat banks that not only meet regulatory requirements, but also align with broader ESG goals and international sustainability standards.

Habitat banks offer a structured, cost-effective and scalable way to meet biodiversity offset obligations, particularly in sectors where environmental impacts are unavoidable. Unlike individual or project-specific offsets, habitat banks centralize conservation efforts in designated areas, enabling the generation of verified biodiversity credits. For companies, this model provides regulatory efficiency: by using pre-approved banks, businesses reduce the risk of delays in licensing and compliance processes. It also promises cost control and scalability: centralizing offsets reduces long-term costs and improves ecological outcomes. Finally, there is benefit in the form of reputation and ESG alignment: investing in measurable biodiversity actions strengthens sustainability credentials and responds to investor expectations.

In short, habitat banks allow companies to turn a regulatory requirement into a strategic asset, which also contributes to the global fight against biodiversity loss, one of the major causes of climate change that we are currently experiencing.

Structuring a habitat bank involves navigating legal, technical and financial complexities. At CMS, our multidisciplinary team, bringing together expertise in sustainability and environmental law, real estate, public law and project finance, provides integrated support to guide clients from design to implementation. Key challenges include:

• Land tenure and land use planning: this is one of the first hurdles we typically encounter; verifying property rights and negotiating long-term conservation easements with landowners requires close coordination with our real estate and notarial teams
• Community engagement: it is essential to ensure local support and manage expectations, particularly in rural areas where conservation and productive land use often coexist
• Financial structuring: this also plays a central role; we help design a fiduciary model to guarantee the permanence of conservation actions and enable future credit transactions in a secure and transparent manner
• Regulatory coordination: this is key to facilitating technical dialogues with environmental authorities across the globe to align project design with expectations and international standards where no local regulation has yet been issued.

Habitat banks are indispensable across sectors including infrastructure, energy, agriculture, mining and real estate development. They offer a strategic, unified platform to effectively manage cumulative biodiversity impacts, particularly in regions with overlapping project footprints.

Leveraging multiple CMS practice areas, we uncover synergies that go beyond mere legal compliance. Our public law team, for instance, provides critical insights into local development plans, while our sustainability experts align the bank with global reporting standards, industry best practice and self-regulatory frameworks.

This collaborative approach helps position the habitat bank not only as a legal requirement, but also as a key element of our client’s sustainability strategy.

An example of how habitat banks work in practice in Colombia is the Banco de Hábitat El Meta, located in the eastern plains of Colombia. This project, led by the company Terrasos, spans over 1,000 hectares of strategic ecosystems and aims to offset environmental impacts through long-term conservation and restoration. This initiative has been publicly discussed and represents a significant step toward more structured and transparent biodiversity offset solutions in the country.

For companies in Colombia and similar jurisdictions, habitat banks represent a strategic opportunity to align with regulatory trends and sustainability goals. At CMS Colombia, we view biodiversity as a catalyst for legal innovation, where compliance becomes measurable impact. Effective implementation requires early planning, multidisciplinary coordination and a long-term vision. In one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, we are proud to help turn these tools into scalable, tangible solutions for conservation and development.