Germany has an important planning instrument with a focus on preserving nature and the landscape: impact mitigation regulation. The planned mitigation and compensation measures are mandatory and legally binding. It is hoped that the way will now be open for innovative solutions by ‘compensation pools’. This paper gives a brief overview of interim research results of a current research project by the Technical University of Berlin, illustrating the general approach of impact mitigation regulation and of compensation pools. It discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the German approach and describes the main criteria defining ‘good practice’ in establishing these pools. A case study demonstrates the implementation of a pool in Germany.