Triodos Bank has announced its first private sector loan based on a biodiversity net gain (BNG) unit model for 120 acres of degraded farmland in the South East, a deal that could create a blueprint for financing nature-based solutions at scale.

BNG was introduced in England earlier this year and places a legal requirement on property developers to demonstrate a minimum net gain of 10 per cent of biodiversity, ensuring that habitats are left in a measurably better state than they were before the development took place. If this net gain cannot be achieved on site, BNG units can be bought from local nature projects and used to offset the difference, which is where Nature Impact offers its service.

This is the first private commercial debt package from Triodos Bank UK based on a BNG unit model. It follows a £3.85m loan to tree planting charity Avon Needs Trees, who acquired 422 acres of land that will eventually form part of Lower Chew Forest, the largest new woodland in the South West for a generation.

The loan has enabled environmental consultancy Nature Impact to purchase 70 acres of land in Rolvenden in Kent and another 52 acres in Wadhurst, East Sussex and will see the restoration and creation of a wide range of habitats, including native wildflower meadows, traditional orchards, woodland, scrub, ponds, wetlands and hedgerows. These aim to provide new and improved homes for a wide range of English wildlife.

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