Environment Bank is working in collaboration with Barclays Business and Corporate Banks to support greater visibility and adoption of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) to landowners and developers across the built environment sector.
EB’s Biodiversity Units enable developers to fulfil their BNG obligations. They work with farmers and landowners to generate these Biodiversity Units by building agricultural habitat banks – supporting farmers to increase biodiversity, unlock a diversified revenue stream, and build business resilience for their farm businesses.
In mid-October EB announced that it had secured a further nine conservation covenants for habitat banks located across England, bringing the total secured this summer to 17. These nine habitat banks (located in Shropshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Dorset, West Sussex, North Yorkshire, East Sussex, Northumberland and County Durham) cover more than 600 acres of land where EB is working closely with the landowner to increase biodiversity across a range of habitat types.
BNG aims to make sure that development projects in England have a measurably positive impact on biodiversity. To comply with the Environment Act 2021, developers in England must deliver a 10 per cent net uplift in biodiversity relating to the site to be granted planning permission.
Developer clients of Barclays will now be able to purchase these off-site biodiversity units from Environment Bank.
As part of the collaboration, Environment Bank and Barclays are highlighting opportunities for farmers and landowners to explore the BNG market as an avenue of accessing nature markets, through Environment Bank’s model where it takes a 30-year lease on areas of land to deliver the biodiversity gains.
Environment Bank’s CEO, Catherine Spitzer, said, “We look forward to helping Barclays developer and agricultural clients to navigate the BNG market. I hope that working closely with Barclays clients in this way will make a significant contribution to nature restoration in England.”
Environment Bank has already established a network of 27 habitat banks over almost 2,000 acres across England – with more than 20 additional sites already in development.
The EB team includes more than 80 experts working across ecology, land management, planning, and legal services. Their developer clients include SME and major housebuilders alongside significant commercial, utility, energy, and infrastructure developers.