Celebrating BNG’s first anniversary
We’re celebrating a whole year since Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), one of the most pivotal pieces of environmental legislation in England’s history, finally came into effect.
This policy has already led to the restoration of thousands of acres of land where valuable habitats are being restored to help our ecosystems recover and our native wildlife grow in abundance.
We’re witnessing BNG’s success
Environment Bank began preparing for BNG policy long before it became mandatory by creating England’s largest and fastest-growing network of BNG Habitat Banks. A year on from BNG launching, and we now have almost 8,000 open Biodiversity Unit enquiries.
When BNG came into effect for developers, we’d already legally secured over 2,000 acres of land in partnership with local farmers and started creating new habitats to generate over 5,000 off-site Biodiversity Units for developers to purchase.
We’re currently working to support over 1,000 development projects across a vast range of sectors in England – with 55% of them being residential development – and we’re pleased to say that we’re able to provide Biodiversity Units that are either local or adjacent for more than 70% of these projects.
Our BNG Habitat Banks currently make up more than 40% of Natural England’s biodiversity gain sites register, and we’ve got over a dozen more from our broad national network to add in the very near future, making us far and away the leading off-site BNG provider on a national scale.
Alongside other Biodiversity Unit providers across England, we’re successfully ensuring that we’re ready to meet off-site BNG demand for developers now and in the future.
Developers we’re providing with Biodiversity Units
Over the past year, we’ve been fortunate to work with a number of household names, including Europe’s largest logistics real estate developer, Panattoni, and one of the world’s leading utilities providers, National Grid.
We’ve even secured a supply partnership agreement with supermarket chain, Aldi, to provide off-site Biodiversity Units for a number of their upcoming developments across England.
Our most recent high-profile client was Everton FC who required Biodiversity Units for a public transport project led by Merseytravel that will be an essential part of their highly anticipated new stadium at Bramley Moore Dock.
Over half of our clients have been in the residential sector, from SME developers to large housebuilders. Last year, we were proud to work with Hoober Urban Partnerships to supply Biodiversity Units for an important social housing project in Sheffield.
We’ve proud to say that we’ve already working or having discussions with most major housebuilders operating in England, including Berkley Group, Barratt Redrow, Keepmoat, Vistry Group, McCarthy Stone, Miller Homes, Wain Homes, and Gailliard Homes.
Looking back on BNG policy rollout
After being introduced in the Environment Act 2021, BNG first became mandatory for major development projects on the 12th of February 2024.
Following its initial roll out, BNG also became mandatory for small site developments in April 2024 and it’s due to apply to nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs) from November of 2025.
Aside from projects that meet strict exception criteria, BNG policy will eventually apply to all development projects in England meaning they’ll play a role in actively increasing the nation’s biodiversity.
A clear framework for developers
Even before BNG, mitigating the impact of development on habitats wasn’t something entirely unfamiliar to the built environment sector.
Similar policies were already being enforced in various councils across England. Some required developers to measure and offset their exact impact to cause ‘no net loss’ in biodiversity. Some even required additional biodiversity gains as well as these offsets (as much as 20% extra).
By introducing a statutory metric for calculating biodiversity alongside set guidance for delivering gains, BNG policy helped build a standardised framework that could be enforced across the country, creating much needed consistency for developers.
Boosting the rural economy
As development land rarely has the space available for habitats to be created on-site, BNG policy recognised that often these habitats will need to be created somewhere else.
Under BNG policy, developers have the option to purchase Biodiversity Units created elsewhere to help mitigate their on-site impacts and deliver the required 10% net gain in biodiversity to meet their BNG planning condition.
These off-site Biodiversity Units are created at Habitat Banks, parcels of land set aside for BNG. This system of habitat banking created a great opportunity for landowners to generate additional land income through habitat creation.
We’ve already seen how BNG has been embraced by landowners, particularly by rural farmers, who are able to gain a reliable stream of long-term income alongside all the benefits that come with increased biodiversity on their land, such as improved soil health and natural flood mitigation.
The partnership with Environment Bank is enabling us to see a clear picture of how our farm can stay within the family for generations to come.
Richard Pendlebury
Environment Bank BNG farmer partner
Horwich Habitat Bank
Effective policy for nature
Habitat banking for BNG also has a lot of advantages for nature that make it an effective alternative to on-site habitat creation when fulfilling BNG policy.
Ecological principles actually demonstrate that if we group the biodiversity gains required from multiple development projects together and create larger habitats in strategic locations, we can actually be far more effective at restoring broad ecosystems and supporting wildlife.
As dedicated spaces set aside for BNG, Habitat Banks can be created where they can be regularly managed and protected by qualified ecologists and land specialists.
BNG habitats must be monitored for 30 years to comply with policy, and that’s a long time to ensure that habitats are properly maintained, something that’s especially challenging if they’re part of a development site where nature could be easily disturbed.
Habitat banking also means that don’t have to wait until the development impacts have occurred to start creating new habitats and generating biodiversity gains, so we can begin healing our ecosystems right now.
New website, same biodiversity experts
As the leading national off-site BNG provider, we want to continue offering the best services for our developer clients and continue to create partnerships with landowners looking to set up Habitat Banks on their land.
So, to celebrate the first anniversary of BNG, we’ve launched our brand-new website to showcase the incredible work of our team and offer quick and easy access to our BNG solutions.
Our website was designed and built by one of the UK’s leading sustainable website agencies. We hand picked Wholegrain because they champion our core values, and their team are passionate advocates of environmentally conscious digital solutions.
All of the words on this website were written by our own in-house content team without the aid of AI, avoiding the associated negative environmental impacts associated with AI text generation tools (and ensuring that we always remain authentically Environment Bank).
Much like our BNG Habitat Bank network, our team of biodiversity experts is continuing to grow so we can continue to see the success of BNG. We’ve got so much planned for the coming year and couldn’t be prouder of all we’ve achieved so far!
It’s incredible to play such an active role in ensuring BNG delivers as promised for developers, landowners, and ecosystems across England – directly channelling much needed private funding into effective environmental recovery.
