The IES’s Environmental Policy Implementation Community (EPIC), the IES's Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Community, and the Association of Local Government Ecologists (ALGE) are pleased to announce the formation of a new working group on Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), to deliver a mandatory BNG in practice research project. The project will seek to establish an emerging picture of how BNG is working in practice.

BNG is a key environmental delivery challenge, with longstanding and widespread concerns about its preparation and implementation. While Defra, the Planning Advisory Service, and others have conducted significant work to prepare local authorities for the introduction of mandatory BNG (on the 12th February 2024 for major developments and 2nd April 2024 for smaller sites), it has not yet been established how the policy is functioning in terms of delivery.

This project will seek to ‘pull back the curtain’ and create an initial evidence base on BNG implementation, through surveys and interviews with IES and ALGE members. Capitalising on member expertise, the working group brings together local authority planners, developers, environmental lawyers and ecologists.

The group's survey on mandatory BNG has now closed (it ran from the 1st - 26th August). A workshop will be held on the 10th October at the EPIC Autumn Conference to discuss the project and survey results. Register to attend here.

The BNG Working Group is supported by IES Policy Officer, Ellie Savage, and Communities and Partnerships Lead, Ethny Childs. If you have any queries regarding the project, please contact Ellie at ellie@the-ies.org.