Building with nature in mind

James Wickenden, Head of Environment, Kier Natural Resources, Nuclear & Networks

Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) is now part of the construction mainstream. From February 2024, most developments in England must deliver at least a 10% increase in biodiversity. It’s often framed as a compliance hurdle — something to be dealt with towards the end of the design process and a block to obtaining planning permission.

But this approach misses the bigger opportunity. BNG, and nature-based solutions (of all scales), represent a fundamental opportunity to do construction differently. At Kier our best nature-based schemes allow us to design, build, and handover to our to clients to operate projects that add ecological value, improve climate resilience, and deepen community connections to the places we create.

The key is integration. BNG and nature-based solutions cannot be achieved in isolation by any one part of the construction process. It needs to be embedded — stage by stage — throughout the construction lifecycle. Our best projects demonstrate collaboration throughout the whole process and show how we can work brilliantly together.

BNG as a Whole-Lifecycle Challenge

In our sector, we tend to think in stages: ECI, design, procurement, construction, handover, and operation. These stages are often managed by different entities, sometimes with competing priorities. For BNG to succeed, each stage has to play its part — and understand how it connects to the rest.

For client organisations, setting clear expectations which their whole supply chain can align to reduces the conflict in priorities which can exist in a complex construction environment. It allows the different organisations to collaborate more easily as the client has communicated their strategic direction which we must all work towards.

Space to breathe

With the inevitable cost and programme pressures which all projects experience we must somehow allow time for innovative ideas and strategies to breathe. We see the inevitable drift back to tried and tested ‘grey solutions’ where inadequate time has been left to develop alternate nature-based solutions where they could have been viable if they had been invested in.

If the industry does not allow this ‘room to breathe’ during the early stages of the lifecycle, the ability to make meaningful change diminishes as the project progresses and construction starts.

The same dynamic exists for decarbonisation and circular economy principals, where the decision to truly construct a sustainable solution has to be embedded deeply in the ethos of the project. Where that culture has been successfully embedded, such as at the Lower Otter Restoration Project, the engineering and construction solutions selected to meet the challenge result in a true nature-based solution.

In conclusion

For nature-based solutions to be adopted widely across our industry as our preferred solution we all need to proactively drive their uptake, and whatever part of the construction lifecycle you represent, as you read this you have a role to play to push that agenda.

At Kier we are ready to implement these innovative solutions and through our Kier 360 approach we have consolidated our specialist people into a new business unit called Kier Design. We have been building on the existing skillset of our colleagues in Kier Design to more deeply integrate BNG and nature-based solutions in our engineering solutions to make it business as usual.