The UN’s Global Biodiversity Outlook 5 report warned of unprecedented loss of biodiversity and damage to the earth’s living systems, linking degradation of nature to the spread of diseases such as Covid-19. In calling for a shift away from “business as usual” it pressed for an urgent transition in cities and infrastructure towards deploying “green infrastructure” and making space for nature within built landscapes.
Those countries already working towards Sustainable Development Goal 15, concerning life on land, should already be integrating biodiversity into planning and development processes.
Environmentalists in the UK will welcome measures in the pipeline for increasing biodiversity, but the real estate community should be aware that new policy translates into some onerous requirements that require integration at a very early stage in the design process if significant costs and delays are to be avoided.
Approaching these new regulations at an early design stage – and in the right spirit – presents an opportunity to improve amenity and biodiversity in new development through attractive and multi-functional outdoor spaces.
The colour of money
One of the UK biodiversity statistics highlighted by the UN’s report might amuse those who regard the British as obsessed with house prices. The UN quotes a 2019 update from Defra and the Office for National Statistics as saying that living within 500m of green or blue spaces was estimated to add an average of £2,800 to urban property prices in 2016. Moreover, following the national lockdown experienced due to the current pandemic, the real estate community has experienced an increased demand for homes with gardens.
Key measures in the UK’s regulatory pipeline are the draft London Plan’s Urban Greening Factor and the Environment Bill’s biodiversity net gain obligation for developers.
Requirements for tree-lined streets in the Planning for the Future white paper will have caught the attention of many developers, but the stated aim here is “beauty” rather than biodiversity.
London’s Urban Greening Factor will guide boroughs on the amount of greening in major developments. More than half of London is to be green by 2050 through planted roofs and walls, street trees, parks and gardens – a green infrastructure network, helping to control pollution, reduce flood risk and cool the city.
The biodiversity net gain obligation for developers is a national planning requirement for new developments to enhance biodiversity by 10% – expected from 2022/2023. The aims go well beyond the ‘hedgehog highways’ of official announcements to include new green spaces and ecosystems, delivering improvements in wildlife habitat availability, air quality, water flow control and outdoor recreation.
The two measures are likely to present different challenges. Urban greening could be hardest to achieve in highly urbanised locations where space is constrained. Implementing a 10% uplift in biodiversity will be challenging on greenfield sites where biodiversity is already high.
Developers have the option of offsite compensation within registered habitat banks, which should help avoid tokenistic green features.
What does this mean in practice for developers?
• Monitoring local authority guidance in the form of local nature recovery strategies and updated biodiversity action plans.
• Compatible design of roads, buildings, infrastructure, drainage and landscape.
• Environmental assessments: ecological surveys and reporting; assessing the ability to provide on-site habitat creation; application of Defra’s biodiversity metric.
• Planning: consultation with local planning authorities; landscape-led planning; clear presentation of a biodiversity net gain plan; a BREEAM assessment.
The UN had two key recommendations for addressing biodiversity in cities and infrastructure. Firstly, “make greater use of green infrastructure, such as preservation and creation of green spaces and wetlands, to support multiple needs of urban populations as well as to promote urban biodiversity.”
Secondly, “reflect biodiversity considerations in the planning and development of infrastructure investments, such as the design and management of transportation systems, and other linear infrastructure, through processes such as biodiversity-inclusive environmental assessments and large-scale zoning to avoid the most vulnerable areas for biodiversity, and application of measures to preserve ecological connectivity, for example through overpasses, underpasses and green infrastructure.”
Infrastructure is a particular worry for the UN, which reports 25m km of new roads anticipated by 2050, a 60% increase in the total length of roads since 2010. But urban development also faces extreme pressure: according to the UN, the world population is expected to grow to around 8.5bn by 2030 and 9.7bn by 2050, with the proportion residing in urban areas increasing from 55% in 2018 to 68% by 2050.
The UK is responding to this pressure with some hard-hitting policies. The development community will soon have no choice but to become part of the solution.
Lisa Bulmer is an environmental specialist at Dar
