What the passing of the Environment Act means for you
With the landmark Environment Bill now finally gaining Royal Assent, this means Biodiversity Net Gain will be mandatory across every project, with a legal obligation to provide 10% BNG on all sites.
10 November 2021 | 2 min read
With the landmark Environment Act finally gaining Royal Assent, Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) will be mandatory across every project, with a legal obligation to provide 10% BNG on all sites in England.
Where companies may have avoided these requirements in the past, this will now simply no longer be possible. Moving from a position of no net loss, to providing net gain, is a crucial move in tackling biodiversity loss and climate change. By making this law, the UK Government is vowing its commitment to clean our air, restore natural habitats, increase biodiversity, reduce waste and make better use of resources, including helping to transition to a more circular economy.
Development proposals in England must now legally deliver 10% biodiversity net gain, to be maintained for at least 30 years. It is the law of the land, and a legal framework that should start to clean up our polluted air and water, restore our soils and wildlife populations, and create a healthy, truly prosperous nation.
“The future of sustainable development has relied heavily on the BNG approach coming into power.” adds Mike Barker, Director of Ecology at RPS. “Now that it is, Nature Recovery Networks (NRN) will need to be at the heart of any future planning system. This will be a huge change to sectors such as logistics and data centres, which will see any new business models drastically needing to be altered. New nature places will be a central focus to any plan, and mapped out, joined up and placed where they will work best for nature, and for people”.
From the announcement, if you have any concerns over sites or projects and how they will be affected, we’re happy to talk you through what additional requirements may be needed.
Find out more about our Biodiversity Net Gain services.
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About RPS
Founded in 1970, RPS, A Tetra Tech Company (RPS) is a leading global professional services firm of 5,000 consultants and service providers. Operating in 125 countries, working across six continents we define, design and manage projects that create shared value to a complex, urbanising and resource-scarce world.
RPS delivers a broad range of services in six sectors: property, energy, transport, water, defence and government services and resources. Services provided across RPS' six sectors cover twelve service clusters: project and program management, design and development, water services, environment, advisory and management consulting, exploration and development, planning and approvals, health, safety and risk, oceans and coastal, laboratories, training and communications, creative and digital services.
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