2025 Recap: BNG Industry Leaders
For our latest BNG Pricing Report - to be published in February 2026, the two year anniversary of the legislation - we wanted to recap on where the industry had come in 2025.
So we canvassed our colleagues across the industry and gathered their perspectives - see below.
They make for fantastic reading, an insight into our new industry finding genuine momentum. We are proud to play our part in helping restore UK nature while helping builders get building.
We also collated key facts from the Natural England register - telling the story in numbers. Particularly inspiring is the nearly 5000 hectares now dedicated to restoring our countries biodiversity.
"2025 saw the BNG market go from strength to strength and really start to deliver for nature, whilst supporting sustainable development. Environment Bank exemplifies what developers are seeking in the offsite market - trust, reliability, fair pricing and the highest level of integrity and ecological principles."
Emma Toovey, Chief Nature Officer, Environment Bank
“Following the changes and clarifications announced at the end of 2025, it’s great that we can now just get on with the job of delivering Biodiversity Net Gains for our customers and for nature. Every week, a wider range of tools become available to make this task easier, increasing understanding, streamlining the process and levelling costs”
Neil Beamsley, Head of Nature and Biodiversity, Bellway Homes
"We are delighted with how the BNG market is unfolding, despite the uncertainty that policy change creates. We continue to see more demand than we were expecting at this early stage of the market and are excited about the future. There is also huge interest in the policy internationally, so BNG is clearly regarded as a world-class policy and DEFRA should be very proud of what they have created"
Glenn Anderson, Strategy Lead, Wendling Beck Project
“2025 was the year that BNG really started to have an impact, as developments emerged from planning. The market has grown stronger, and buyers are seeing more choice and making more informed decisions on who they buy from. BNG has enabled un-developable brownfield sites to be enhanced for nature, thus helping brownfield developable sites to contribute to housing need. GEDG’s continued investment in natural capital is one of confidence in the market and by increasing geographical reach, GEDG will create more significant outcomes for nature and help deliver compliant development at scale”
Simon Towers, Co-Chairman, Green Earth Development Group
"2025 will be remembered as the year BNG finally became fully established. As planning authorities have come to terms with how BNG works, transactions have become simpler and quicker to process, but large scale demand remains elusive. However Iford Biodiversity Project continues to thrive with over 60 allocations on the register and plans for further expansion of the land area under BNG in the pipeline for 2026. We hope that the effects of the BNG consultation will not be as catastrophic as first feared, but the removal of the “breadcrumb” demand will be a blow to everyone involved in the provision of BNG”
Ben Taylor, Managing Director, Iford Estate
“We’re seeing a clear uplift in capability across BNG stakeholders, which is building real confidence in how the legislation is applied from farms to development sites. BNG is gathering significant momentum, and on the back of that, we’re accelerating investment in new gain sites across England” Dick Jeavons-Fellows, Director, Small Habitat Company
"The regime is still bedding in more slowly than expected, but things are speeding up somewhat. Fewer than 200 sites on the offsite register after nearly two years is disappointing but there is a lot of demand for the sites from developers needing offsite gains - over 1000 allocations, so that part is looking more healthy"
Angus Walker, Partner, TLT LLP
If you want a copy of the BNG Pricing Report February 2026 you can get one from this link.