Dr Tony Juniper CBE                            CAP0055

Additional written evidence submitted by Dr Tony Juniper CBE (Chair, Natural England)

Dear Philip,

It was a pleasure to provide evidence to the Environmental Audit Select Committee at the session on 24th January as part of the Natural Capital in the Green Economy Inquiry and thank you for the opportunity to outline the role of the natural environment and the value of natural capital in rising to the challenge of nature recovery and the UKs net zero ambitions.

During the session I offered to share links to past research published by Robert Costanza - I understand colleagues have done so with your Clerks following the session but please also find these listed again below for completeness.

• https://www.nature.com/articles/387253a0
• https://www.robertcostanza.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/2014_J_Costanza_GlobalValueUpdate.pdf

I also wanted to offer some further clarification around the role of Biodiversity Net Gain and the specific points I exchanged with Mr Grayling at Q.86. As I underlined during the session, BNG has an essential role to play as part of the wider suite of measures we must take to bring about nature recovery. At a time when BNG is about to be launched we are especially keen that it be seen as a vital mechanism which will both deliver net gains for nature but also drives things forward in a market sense to create trade conditions where people have sufficient trust and confidence in the policy to invest their capital and land.

As I reflected with Mr Grayling, whilst BNG cannot be solely responsible for reversing the decline of nature, it is a groundbreaking approach that is very much focussed on nature recovery rather than merely protection. In addition, as noted in other sections of our discussion, it will form a bedrock for layering and stacking other positive outcomes from other mechanisms such as local nature recovery strategies and ELMS, all of which can make a significant contribution to restoring our natural world.

As noted with the Committee all of this sits within the context of future considerations of a broader land use strategy for England and, as your inquiry so helpfully points towards, the ability to use natural capital to help us inform choices as to where we plan our crops, housing, wider infrastructure including transport and energy, public access, health and wellbeing, whilst also delivering for carbon capture and nature recovery.

With the Governments suite of targets and new tools stemming from the Environment Act and EIP this is an exciting challenge, one which I am confident we can meet if we are able to facilitate and deliver a series of multiple outcomes in the same place and in a coordinated way. For example, emerging Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) will rely upon BNG as an important funding mechanism to help incorporate the needs of biodiversity with other public goods and benefits, informing those decisions with other supporting tools such as the Green Infrastructure Framework (GIF) and GI mapping. As the committee considered that would also be an effective use of public money and the limited land that we have as a country.

The exciting premise of BNG is that it offers hope that we can turn the critical corner of reversing decline into recovery, that there will no longer be a net environmental impact from development and indeed there will be a small net gain for nature from it. This is not achieved merely by ‘protection’ but by this important requirement to add nature into developments from the very beginning. As such it is a hugely significant step which will also allow Local Planning Authorities to set minimum net gain requirements higher than 10% if they feel that is locally appropriate.

We are both delighted with, and proud of, the excellent work that has been achieved in taking forward BNG and are optimistic about the positive changes it can bring for nature and communities. There are some excellent examples of what can be achieved with the net gain approach, and I wanted to invite the Committee to see at first hand some of the work being achieved by the partnership at Kidbrooke Village in London where developers have already delivered 100% Net Gain which could rise to as high as 250% in the coming years.

We would be delighted to help facilitate a visit and I will ask the team here to follow up with Committee staff to see if that would be useful.

I look forward to seeing you again soon and in the meantime should you have any queries or require any further information please do not hesitate to contact me.

With all best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Tony Juniper

Chair, Natural England

February 2024