Cemex launch new BNG service to support developers

New service offering to help support other organizations in achieving their own Biodiversity Net Gain requirements

CEMEX UK are launching their Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) offering to the industry, to help support other organizations in achieving their own BNG requirements following the changes to UK legislation.

Biodiversity Net Gain is an approach that aims to ensure future UK developments create a positive lasting impact on our natural environment by implementing a minimum target for new developments to achieve a 10% uplift in the biodiversity of a site.

Cemex have created a dedicated BNG service in response to the new legislation, which utilizes their access to an established portfolio of sites alongside their considerable expertise gained from a long-standing history of nature recovery, land restoration, and enhancing biodiversity across their sites for the benefit of the natural environment.

Steve Redwood, land development and property director for Cemex, said: ‘Our Biodiversity Net Gain offering can help organizations who are new to biodiversity enhancement projects, those who may not have the in-house skills or knowledge, and companies working with sites where biodiversity net gain targets will be difficult or costly to achieve.

‘Cemex’s Biodiversity Net Gain service will help guide businesses through the entire lifecycle approach from initial assessment to unit purchase and long-term habitat management with no further input required, ensuring a hassle-free approach to the management and realization of biodiversity net gain. For developers, Cemex’s offer will help to deliver biodiversity net gain without the pain that may otherwise be associated with challenging or difficult to deliver sites.’

In order to achieve the 10% increase in biodiversity, organizations will need to conduct a ‘Biodiversity Baseline Assessment’ of a site before any work starts. This will measure the existing biodiversity of a site using the Defra Biodiversity Metric (currently Biodiversity Metric 4.0). Developers will then be required to demonstrate a 10% increase in biodiversity units compared with this baseline.

As well as demonstrating how the development will achieve a 10% increase in biodiversity units, companies will also need to show how the biodiversity units will be maintained for at least 30 years. The information submitted to the local planning authority (LPA) must, therefore, also contain a management and monitoring plan to ensure that habitats are established properly and that they deliver the long-term environmental benefits that the introduction of BNG is intended to deliver.

It is now a condition of planning permission that a development cannot commence without an LPA-approved Biodiversity Gain Plan in place. However, Biodiversity Gain Plans are complex by their very nature and involve specialist ecology support with the Biodiversity Metric calculations and legal advice on long-term habitat creation agreements.

Whilst the aim of BNG is for businesses to deliver these enhancements locally as part of the development of a site, there is also a recognition that for some developments, particularly in urban or high-density areas, it may be extremely challenging, too time-consuming, or quite simply not cost-effective, to achieve the mandatory 10% uplift in biodiversity units required.

In these examples, if a developer cannot achieve a 10% biodiversity gain on site, they can purchase units from third-party landowners who may have exceeded their own biodiversity requirements and, therefore, have a surplus of biodiversity credits that can be traded.