BNG: the Defra consultation and what it means for industry

Missed the webinar? Watch again below.

Thursday, 17 March 2022, 15:00–16:30 GMT

In January, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) released its consultation on biodiversity net gain (BNG), a policy that will fundamentally change the way that habitat loss is considered as part of development. BNG puts nature at the heart of design and decision-making to ensure that development projects protect and enhance biodiversity.

Join us on 17 March for a virtual event that will bring together policy, legal, investor, industry and practitioner perspectives to explore what the consultation means to them, and how BNG policy will affect industry.

Presentations from our expert panellists will be followed by a breakout session, in which attendees will be invited to join virtual themed tables relevant to their area of work to further explore what BNG will look like in practice.

Caroline Frost

Caroline is the TV Nominations Chair of the Broadcasting Pres Guild and, as a regular news commentator, speaks on media, politics and culture. She trained as a producer with BBC News in London, UK, before being headhunted to help launch the digital arm of News Limited in Australia. Once she returned to London, Caroline became the founding entertainment editor of HuffPost UK before going freelance in 2017. Caroline has written three bestselling books; her fourth will be published in April 2022.

Richard Broadbent, Director – Planning and Environment Group, Freeths LLP

Before joining Freeths LLP in January 2022, Richard was a solicitor and then Head of Legal Services at Natural England. Richard led on many of Natural England’s high-profile litigation and enforcement cases and provided advice to the organisation’s teams on the emergence of the Environment Act 2021 and the Nature Recovery Green Paper. Richard is a highly distinguished environmental lawyer and has worked on a number of high-profile nationally significant infrastructure, planning and species licensing cases. These have included nuclear power stations, offshore wind farms, port developments and HS2. Richard worked with the Law Commission on its conservation covenants project and with Defra on its inclusion in the Environment Act 2021. Richard holds an LLM in Environmental Law from UCL.

Dr Indranil Ghosh, CEO of Tiger Hill Capital and Senior Advisor at Cube Infrastructure Managers

MIT-trained scientist Dr Indranil Ghosh is an author, sustainable investor and strategic adviser to governments and leading global corporations. He is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Tiger Hill Capital, which partners with visionary leaders to build investment platforms and businesses with a societal impact mission. Previously, Dr Ghosh was Head of Strategy at Mubadala, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign investment and development fund, and held senior roles at Bridgewater Associates and McKinsey & Company. He is the author of Powering Prosperity: A Citizen’s Guide to Shaping the 21st Century, which brings together his decades of experience and research at the intersection of socio-economic development, sustainable investing and business disruption.

Dr Julia Baker, Biodiversity Technical Specialist, Balfour Beatty

Julia has designed and delivered biodiversity net gain on a variety of infrastructure projects, including housing, railways, highways and energy transmission. Julia is the lead author of the UK’s Biodiversity Net Gain: Good Practice Principles for Development and a co-author of the associated practical guidance. Julia runs professional training courses on biodiversity net gain and is a visiting researcher at Oxford University.

Jon Davies, Director, RSK Biocensus, Nature Positive and RSK Wilding

Jon set up RSK Wilding, a group seeking to offset biodiversity, carbon and other natural capital impacts through large-scale rewilding and habitat creation projects. As a beetles fan, his aim is for a bottom-up approach, focusing on invertebrates, the building blocks of biodiversity. In early 2020, Jon was made a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management.

For a summary of the key highlights and takeaways from the discussion, read our event round-up.