What we’re doing

To have the biggest impact on nature, we’re creating Habitat Banks where biodiversity is low, often on land that’s difficult to farm or has a history of intensive farming.

With a national team of highly qualified biodiversity experts and land specialists, we’ve been creating impactful Habitat Banks around the country – and we’re already seeing biodiversity increase.

We lease land for at least 30 years so our ecologists can work alongside the landowner to manage the new habitats until they’re fully established. We tailor each Habitat Bank to support the local landscape, introducing a variety of habitats – including meadows, woodland, wetland, scrubland, and so much more.

Four of the Environment Bank team visiting a Habitat Bank, two men in their thirties and two women in their twenties, two wearing waxed countryside jackets, two wearing blue windbreakers.

Working with landowners

By partnering with us to create a Habitat Bank, landowners can make their land richer in nature and gain a reliable source of additional income for years to come. We cover all the costs and provide support throughout.

Along with lease payments, we pay our landowners to help manage the Habitat Banks using sustainable farming activities like livestock grazing and hay cutting so the primary use of the land can remain agricultural.

Once creation works are complete, we secure funding in advance to cover all thirty years of habitat management payments to give our partners confidence in their new income stream.

Environment Bank's Chief Land & Nature Officer, Emma, a woman in her forties with long curly brown hair, wearing a blue outdoor coat, stood on-site at a Habitat Bank with a landowner - a woman in her sixties with curly grey hair, wearing a hat, green fleece and blue jeans - and her herd of sheep

How to get started

1

Register your land parcel

Complete our simple form. We do an initial review of your options and provide a no-obligation quote for a Habitat Bank on your land.

2

We visit your land parcel

Next, we complete a full on-site ecology assessment and find an approach that can support your current land income streams.

3

Your tailored agreement signed

We create a management and lease payment schedule to suit you and we cover all your accounting and legal costs.

4

Habitat Bank creation begins

Once you’ve signed, we get to work! Enjoy a welcome bonus with your first annual payment (or a lump sum if you prefer).

Discover our landowner stories

Hear from our landowners and see why they chose to partner with Environment Bank. We’re proud of the relationships we’ve built with landowners nationwide, improving their land and providing a reliable source of long-term income.

Explore our BNG network

Across the country, we’ve been creating Habitat Banks to restore lost biodiversity. Discover England’s largest and fastest growing network of BNG Habitat Banks where we work in partnership with landowners to help nature recover.

Render of Newton Harcourt Habitat Bank with habitats restored, showing beautiful wetland landscape surrounded by trees with a church in the background

BNG referral partnerships

We can give your agriculture associates access to the best BNG services. If you know landowners who might want to start their own BNG Habitat Banks, consider becoming an Environment Bank BNG business partner.

Sun setting over a landscape with ridges and furrows as an owl flies across

Frequently asked questions


Working in collaboration with…

Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs
CIEEM
CLA
Natural England
RSK Wilding - Bigger, Better, Wilder