by Rachel Barker, Associate Director of Natural Environment
With mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) now a reality for most developments, the requirement to deliver a 10% uplift in biodiversity is reshaping how we approach land use and planning. Whilst there is generally a desire to achieve this on site through the creation and enhancement of habitats, when this is not enough, developers must turn to the off-site market, purchasing biodiversity units from dedicated habitat banks. However, the mechanics of setting up and trading from a habitat bank can be disjointed.
Establishing a habitat bank requires ecological baseline assessments, habitat management and monitoring plans, a marketplace to sell the generated units and, crucially, a legal mechanism to secure the habitat for a minimum of 30 years. Landowners and developers must navigate a complex web of ecologists, legal entities, brokers and platform providers to piece this puzzle together.
The Missing Link: The Responsible Body
The most significant hurdle in establishing a habitat bank is long-term legal security. To generate tradeable BNG units, the land must be bound by a conservation covenant or a Section 106 agreement. Conservation covenants can only be held by a designated ‘Responsible Body’: an organisation approved by Defra that has the capacity and ecological expertise to monitor and enforce the habitat management and monitoring to achieve the agreed biodiversity outcomes, over the lifetime of the habitat bank.
True End-to-End Support with Envance
At Envance, we recognised that dividing these responsibilities across multiple parties creates unnecessary friction, delay and risk. That is why we have positioned ourselves to deliver a joined-up service for both landowners and developers, with clear safeguards in place to keep each role independent.
Firstly, Envance is proud to be a designated Responsible Body. We have the in-house ecological expertise and organisational robustness required to hold 30-year conservation covenants directly. We can advise on your habitat bank, legally secure it ourselves, and manage it via our in-house platform env:hance. Where we do more than one of these for the same site, the roles are kept apart: separate teams, with ethical walls between them, so that advice is never influenced by our interest in holding the covenant.
Our proprietary habitat banking platform, env:hance, is designed to bridge the gap between supply and demand. For landowners, it provides a transparent, intuitive space to register, monitor and manage their biodiversity units. For developers, it offers a reliable marketplace to find, verify and purchase the exact units required to meet their planning obligations.
A Unified Approach
By combining the env:hance platform with our status as a Responsible Body, Envance removes the complexity from BNG. We can conduct the initial ecological surveys, design the habitat management plans, list and trade the units on env:hance, and, where appropriate, secure the land via a conservation covenant. Since these functions sit with separate teams, each stage is still checked independently, rather than us marking our own homework.
For landowners, this means a single, trusted partner for the entire 30-year journey. For developers, it means confidence that the units they are purchasing are ecologically sound, legally secured, independently checked and fully compliant with national planning requirements.
Biodiversity Net Gain doesn’t have to be complicated when you have the right partner.
If you want to learn more about how env:hance and our end-to-end services can support your project or land, get in touch with the team on 0161 327 1723 or at enquiries@envanceuk.com.
Alternatively, make an enquiry and we'll get in touch with you as soon as we can.