Resource description:
This policy brief outlines how Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) can be used to integrate biodiversity conservation into climate legislation, using the upcoming Climate Protection Law (Klimaschutzgesetz – KSG) in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania as a key opportunity. Although the KSG is primarily climate-focused—aiming for climate neutrality by 2040—SEA provides an essential entry point to align climate action with biodiversity protection, ensuring that new policies contribute to ecosystem resilience, habitat restoration and long-term ecological integrity.
SEA is presented as a forward-looking, proactive planning instrument that identifies environmental risks, trade-offs and opportunities early in policy development. By embedding SEA into the drafting and implementation of the KSG, biodiversity impacts can be assessed systematically using the mitigation and enhancement hierarchy: avoid, minimise, compensate, and enhance. This promotes a shift from reactive mitigation to biodiversity-positive planning, capable of delivering habitat creation, connectivity improvements, and enhanced ecosystem services.
The brief highlights how SEA can support both the development of the law and its implementation through spatial and regional planning updates. It emphasises the importance of baselines on habitat size, quality and connectivity, as well as sectoral coordination, cumulative impact assessment, and enforceable enhancement measures.
Clear policy recommendations are provided, including: integrating SEA in vision-building; strengthening systems thinking; improving links across planning levels; broadening baseline biodiversity data; developing scenario alternatives; focusing on cumulative impacts; prioritising net-gain approaches; strengthening enforcement and monitoring; and enhancing stakeholder engagement throughout the process.
This resource offers practical guidance for policymakers and planners on using SEA to deliver climate legislation that also drives meaningful biodiversity benefits.
Author/Contact:
CoKnow Consulting
Contact: Jennifer Hauck, jennifer.hauck@coknow.de