A lack of transparency in England’s biodiversity net gain (BNG) programme is frustrating conservation scheme managers, with some deliberate withholding of information, an industry insider has said.

Basic data in given areas about the supply of potential BNG schemes, alongside estimates of demand for their units, is not easily accessible, said Kim Connor-Streich, chief commercial officer at BNG scheme manager Greenshank Environmental.

The opacity makes it difficult for private market actors to plan and price their offerings effectively, Connor-Streich told Carbon Pulse. “One of the real issues is there’s no transparency in the market.”

“This is something we’re pushing for: local planning authorities (LPAs) being required to let people know all the schemes that are live, all the schemes that are in the works – just giving buyers that level of visibility.”

London-based Greenshank Environmental is preparing to sell around 400 BNG units. Under legislation that come into force in February, developers must plan to improve biodiversity by 10%.

One authority “deliberately withheld information”, keeping their communication ambiguous to avoid confronting awkward items, Connor-Streich said.

“If you’re going to drop a bomb, you tell everybody as early as possible. If you intentionally withhold that information, that’s not acting in good faith.”

Greenshank Environmental has resorted to using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to find information from LPAs.

Angus Walker, partner at London-based law firm BDB Pitmans, has revealed the results of two investigations using FOI requests into the BNG systems so far this year.

A SIMPLE SOLUTION?

Improving transparency should be simple, without taking up too much LPA time, by regularly sharing approved BNG projects and forecasts of unit demands, Connor-Streich said.

“If LPAs are serious about making this work, they need to have developers that can buy [units], and also scheme owners that can have confidence in investing in a scheme.”

Much of the information is available via planning portals, but is not easily accessible – with each LPA having their own website.

The government’s BNG register also publishes details of approved schemes, although it has only published details of nine sites so far.

In February, numerous critics said local authorities needed better resourcing to implement BNG. At the time, the government said it was investing £29 million in upskilling.

DEMAND CONFIDENCE

Despite the problems with transparency, Greenshank Environmental is “very confident” all its units will sell to developers, Connor-Streich said. In a worst-case scenario, this could take five years, he said.

“We’ve had a decent number of enquiries, and some of them have been very large – selling out the whole scheme.”

“I feel that there is market demand. It’s probably slower than we originally thought, but we’re scaling up marketing.”

The first two weeks of July felt like the start of a tipping point for BNG marketplace Gaia, according to its co-founder Ben Askins.

The complicated BNG legislation has faced numerous issues, including claims it could incentivise building in nature recovery areas, pose serious risks to ecology, and has fundamental gaps in its market infrastructure.

Nevertheless, many market onlookers have praised it as a pioneering attempt to enable developments with overall benefits for nature.

By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com

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