Biodiversity Net Gain: Purchasing less than 1 unit
The Gloucestershire Nature and Climate Fund is not currently in a position to provide sales of less than 1 biodiversity unit, due to the associated legal and administration costs for landowners and broker. Once BNG policy is more embedded in LPA practice and sales procedures are more straight forward, we hope to be able to offer fractions of a unit.
We know how we’re going to make it happen, we just need a bit more time to develop the process.
Read on for your options when purchasing less than 1 biodiversity unit.
What are my next steps to purchase less than 1 unit?
Where less than one biodiversity unit is required for a site, these can be purchased through the government statutory biodiversity credit scheme.
Information about the government credits are here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/statutory-biodiversity-credit-prices
The statutory biodiversity credits cost estimator is available here: https://manage-biodiversity-gains.defra.gov.uk/credits-estimation/credits-tier
Usually, to purchase a government biodiversity credit you would usually need to prove that no other suitable units are available. However, this is not necessary if you are purchasing less than 0.25 units of area or linear biodiversity credits. The minimum size of credit that a developer can purchase from The Government Biodiversity Credit scheme is 0.01 credits.
Be aware of the spatial risk multiplier
Please note it is necessary to double the amount of units to estimate cost of purchasing government statutory biodiversity credits. For example, if the biodiversity metric for a development site says that there is a 0.25 unit deficit, it will be necessary to purchase 0.5 government statutory biodiversity credits. This is because a spatial risk multiplier of 2 is applied to all purchases from the government statutory credit system.
How much is it likely to cost?
Table 1 below shows the current (as of 13/08/24) costs for fractions of a unit of low distinctiveness habitat (A1 units). A2 (medium distinctiveness habitats) and A3 (high distinctiveness habitats) are more expensive than the costs shown in this table and can be calculated using the statutory biodiversity credit calculator.
For any purchases of 0.5 or more biodiversity credits (0.25 biodiversity units) of A1/A2 low/medium habitat distinctiveness you may find that it is most cost effective to purchase 1 biodiversity unit from the Gloucestershire Nature + Climate Fund.
GNCF has a wide variety of biodiversity unit types available in each Local Planning Authority in Gloucestershire.
For biodiversity unit quotes for greater than 1 unit please email GNCF at enquiries@glosncf.com or call 07534226308.
Table 1. Government Biodiversity Credit Cost Table
(from results of statutory biodiversity credit cost estimator, correct as of 13/08/24)
| Number of units required according to site’s biodiversity metric | No. of government credits required (number in column 1 multiplied by 2) | A1 unit cost (low habitat distinctiveness) e.g. modified grassland. |
| 0.01 | 0.02 | £840 |
| 0.02 | 0.04 | £1,680 |
| 0.03 | 0.06 | £2,520 |
| 0.04 | 0.08 | £3,360 |
| 0.05 | 0.1 | £4,200 |
| 0.1 | 0.2 | £8,400 |
| 0.125 | 0.25 | £10,500 |
| 0.25 | 0.5 | £21,000 |
Disclaimer below from https://manage-biodiversity-gains.defra.gov.uk/credits-estimation/credits-cost:
