Biodiversity Net
Gain
What is it?
Biodiversity Net Gain, or BNG, is a process by which development and other activities can rebuild and replace the habitats they damage. As agriculture accounts for 70% of the UK land cover, there is the most opportunity to build these habitats on our land, whilst adhering to the various environmental and accredited environmental laws and requirements we are subject to.
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​The developer must use the mitigation hierarchy to avoid, mitigate and compensate losses to achieve an overall ‘no net loss’, and then deliver at least a 10% gain in the metric biodiversity units value to meet the Environment Act requirements. This provides a quantitative approach to biodiversity net gain. 
How is it measured?
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DEFRA have developed and provided a baselining tool called the biodiversity metric, currently at version 4.1. This tool can take area measurements and farm maps, converting habitats and information into a standard numerical value. Each council can set it's own targets, for example most Suffolk Councils have established a minimum 10% net gain the amount and quality habitat for all developments.
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Our specialist technical advisor can model your whole farm and predict the impact from various projects. We are developing key relationships with local planning authorities and BNG buying groups to facilitate the purchase of the BNG units.
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This service comes as standard through the Farming for Life Plan.
