Sell biodiversity units as a land manager

As a land manager, you could be:

• a landowner

• a farmer

• an estate owner

• a local authority

• a habitat bank operator

• a facilities, property or estate manager

• a land agent

• a land advisor

How to sell biodiversity units

You can sell off-site biodiversity units:

• to a developer

• in partnership with your local authority

• through a habitat bank operator

• through a broker

• on a trading platform

You can also go into partnership with other land managers to increase the area you have for sale. This could be for bigger projects.

You cannot sell biodiversity units when you’re already required to create or enhance habitat for:

• restocking trees

• marine licensing

• remediation under the environmental impactdamage assessmentregulations

Protected compensationsites

You may be able to enhance a protected site and sell the units for BNG. You must get consent from Natural England before you start work.

Non-intertidal protected sites

You can enhance a feature that has not been designated. You must not harm a designated feature.

Get your site ready

1. Find out what habitats your local area needs. To get an idea of what habitat you could create or enhance, you could ask your local planning authority (LPA) for:

• biodiversity action plans

• green infrastructure strategies

• catchment management plans

• biodiversity opportunity areas

• local nature partnership documentation

2. Consider how you can combine biodiversity net gain with other environmental payments.

You can combine biodiversity units and nutrient credits. You may be able to sell them alongside other environmental payments.

3. You will need to calculate how many biodiversity units you will have on your site.

You should use a qualified ecologist to do this. They will do this calculation using the biodiversity metric.

You will need to recalculate your biodiversity units if habitat was created or enhanced on your land before 30 January 2020. You can do this using the biodiversity metric.

You can create biodiversity units before you sell them. This is habitat banking.

4. Secure the land by a legal agreement

You’ll need to commit to managing the habitat for at least 30 years.

You’ll need a planning obligation (section 106) with an LPA or a conservation covenant with a responsible body.

You’ll also need to agree on a habitat management and monitoring plan (HMMP) with your LPA or responsible body.

5. Price your units

To come up with a price for your units, you should think about including:

• management of the land covering at least 30 years

• monitoring and reporting

• ecologist or other experts’ costs

• insurance

• costs to cover work if the habitat fails

• machinery, tools and other staff to carry out the tasks

• inflation and market competition costs

• the cost of experts to review your legal agreement

You’ll need to agree with the developer, responsible body or LPA whether you’ll get paid by:

• lump sum
• staged payment
• results

Registering your land

You will need to register your land as a biodiversity gain site from November 2023.

You can sell biodiversity units and allocate them to a development before or after you register.

If you’re registering someone else’s land, you must provide proof that you can do this on their behalf.

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