The Environment Bill was introduced on the 15 October 2019 by Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers. The Government has also published a policy statement alongside the Bill. Environment Bank welcomes the Government officially acknowledging the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis and the need to address these through nature-based solutions. The Secretary of State declared that endeavours should […]

The latest update to the Environment Bill, just released, confirms that all future projects involving the development of land will need to deliver a 10% biodiversity net gain. There is also a requirement to manage those enhancements for thirty years. Planning Authorities therefore now require transparent, independent, effective means of facilitating biodiversity net gain delivery. […]

Back in 2008, I proposed an ‘Office for Standards in the Environment’, part of whose role would be to ensure development delivered effective mitigation, compensation and gains for biodiversity, with proper governance around delivery to make sure things happened for nature both within the development site boundary and on specific offset habitat banks. It goes […]

An article about biodiversity net gain was featured in the July edition of the Countryside and Land Association magazine ‘Land and Business’. This piece included an interview with Environment Bank Chairman David Hill. The article brought the concept to a vast number of landowners, many of whom were unaware of the possibilities the schemes could […]

Yesterday the government announced it was launching a Green Finance Strategy with the aim to increase investment in sustainable projects and infrastructure. This was accompanied by the statement that there would be an expectation for limited companies to disclose how climate change impacts their work. The government will explore the best way to do this […]