Climate, Nature & Carbon
Biodiversity Net Gain
A statutory market with a thirty-year commitment attached.
Biodiversity Net Gain created a statutory market for habitat units with a legally secured thirty-year management obligation. This module assesses baseline and uplift using the statutory metric, models the income against the land use given up, manages gain site registration and the legal agreement, and holds the monitoring record for the full commitment period.
- 12 capabilities
- 3 linked schemes
- Flagship module
- Offline capable
- 12
- Capabilities in this module
- 5
- Interactive tools
- 3
- Linked support schemes
- 5
- Data integrations
- 5
- Measures reported
The ground reality
What is actually happening in biodiversity net gain in the UK
Biodiversity Net Gain became mandatory for major developments from 12 February 2024 and for small sites from 2 April 2024, with a minimum ten per cent gain and habitat secured for thirty years. Natural England operates the Biodiversity Gain Sites Register with a £639 application fee and sells statutory credits deliberately priced to be uncompetitive with the private market, from around £42,000 per credit. Third-party trackers have reported the market at roughly £93 million across 312 registered sites, a figure that comes from commercial sources rather than an official register.
Figures are as published at the time of writing. Farm policy and payment rates change frequently — verify against the primary source before relying on any number here.
In the field
Biodiversity net gain, as it actually looks
Photography from working UK holdings alongside the interface that records it. Every frame below is a commissioned slot: the brief is stated until the photograph is taken.
Biodiversity Net Gain — a walkthrough
A working pass through biodiversity net gain: entering the record once, and watching it appear in the evidence pack, the calendar and the scheme application without being typed again.
- 0:00 What the module is for
- 0:48 Entering the record
- 2:05 Where it appears next
- 3:20 The evidence pack
Photography slots state their own brief until the shot is commissioned, so the layout never shifts when real images arrive.
Capabilities
What Biodiversity Net Gain does
Every capability below is built on the same underlying record, so entering something once is enough for it to appear wherever it is needed.
Record and plan
- Baseline habitat assessment using the statutory biodiversity metric
- Habitat condition assessment following the published criteria
- Uplift modelling across habitat creation and enhancement options
Operate and monitor
- Unit calculation with distinctiveness, condition, strategic significance and risk multipliers
- Spatial risk multiplier handling for off-site delivery
- Income modelling against the agricultural margin forgone over thirty years
Comply and evidence
- Gain site registration workflow with the register application
- Section 106 or conservation covenant legal agreement management
- Habitat management and monitoring plan authoring for the full thirty years
Analyse and improve
- Monitoring evidence capture with fixed-point photography and survey records
- Buyer matching and unit sale process with price benchmarking
- Stacking assessment against carbon codes, nutrient credits and public schemes
Interactive
Tools you actually use, not screens you read
These are working interfaces inside the module — maps, calculators, planners and dashboards that respond to your own holding data.
Biodiversity unit calculator following the statutory metric structure
Biodiversity unit calculator following the statutory metric structure
CalculatorThirty-year income versus forgone agricultural margin comparator
Thirty-year income versus forgone agricultural margin comparator
ToolHabitat creation option ranker by units generated per hectare
Habitat creation option ranker by units generated per hectare
ToolGain site registration readiness checklist
Gain site registration readiness checklist
ToolMonitoring schedule generator across the full commitment period
Monitoring schedule generator across the full commitment period
ToolEnd to end
How Biodiversity Net Gain runs, start to finish
The module is modelled as a state machine, so at any point the business knows exactly which stage every record is at and what has to happen next.
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1
Assess and record the baseline habitat
This is where the record starts, and getting it right here removes work at every later stage.
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2
Model creation and enhancement options
The platform prompts only for what this stage genuinely needs, and carries everything forward.
-
3
Calculate units generated
Conflicts with scheme rules, regulatory windows and existing commitments are flagged here rather than discovered later.
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4
Appraise against the agricultural alternative
Capture works offline, so this stage is completed in the field rather than remembered afterwards.
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5
Register the gain site
Everything recorded at this point becomes evidence automatically, in every format that will later ask for it.
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6
Complete the legal agreement
This is the stage most businesses currently do twice, once for the operation and once for the paperwork.
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7
Create and manage the habitat
Results feed the whole-farm view, so the effect of this stage is visible against the rest of the business.
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8
Monitor and report for thirty years
The cycle closes here, and what is learned is carried into next season's plan rather than lost.
Who uses it
Built around four real jobs, not one generic user
Each of these people needs something different from the same record. The module is designed so none of them has to work around the others.
Landowner
Considering a habitat bank
Needs the thirty-year obligation valued honestly against the income.
Developer
Meeting the gain requirement
Needs registered units with secure legal delivery.
Ecological consultant
Metric assessment
Needs consistent baseline and condition assessment records.
Local planning authority
Monitoring compliance
Needs evidence that habitat is being delivered as agreed.
Schemes and funding
Support schemes this module works with
Agrivencia holds these schemes as data, so eligibility, payment rates, caps and windows update the day they change rather than at the next software release.
Biodiversity Net Gain
Require development to deliver a measurable net gain in biodiversity, creating a market for habitat units.
Natural England / local planning authorities EnglandCountryside Stewardship
Fund more complex, targeted and bespoke habitat management than the main incentive offer supports.
Defra / Natural England / Rural Payments Agency EnglandSustainable Farming Incentive 2026
Pay farmers for environmental actions taken alongside food production, as the principal replacement for area-based direct payments in England.
Defra / Rural Payments AgencyRates, caps and windows change frequently and sometimes without notice. Always confirm against the current published scheme rules before applying.
Measurement
How you will know it is working
The module reports against these measures from the day it is switched on, so the value is demonstrable rather than assumed.
- 01Units generated
- 02Price achieved per unit
- 03Income per hectare against agricultural alternative
- 04Monitoring compliance rate
- 05Habitat condition achieved against target
Try it now
Biodiversity Unit Calculator
Estimate the biodiversity units a habitat creation or enhancement scheme would generate, and compare thirty years of income against the farming margin it replaces.
How this is calculated
Units are calculated on the statutory metric structure: area multiplied by distinctiveness, condition and strategic significance, with risk multipliers applied for difficulty and time to target condition. Net units are post-intervention minus baseline.
A formal assessment must use the current statutory metric and, in most cases, a competent ecologist. Unit prices vary widely by habitat and region and are not centrally published.
Payment schedule
What is due, and when it lands
Farm support arrives in instalments from several bodies on different calendars. Set against your own overdraft, the question is not how much but when — so the ledger is ordered by date, not by scheme.
| When | Payment | From | Amount | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| February | Biodiversity Net Gain | Natural England / local planning authorities | — | Expected |
| March | Countryside Stewardship | Defra / Natural England / Rural Payments Agency | — | Agreed |
| June | Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 | Defra / Rural Payments Agency | — | Eligible |
| June | Environmental Land Management Capital Grants | Defra / Rural Payments Agency | — | Eligible |
| December | Farming Equipment and Technology Fund | Defra / Rural Payments Agency | — | Eligible |
| February | Farming Transformation Fund | Defra / Rural Payments Agency | — | Eligible |
- — Agreed and scheduled
- — Claimed, awaiting payment
- — Eligible, unclaimed
What the statuses mean
- Agreed
- Under a signed agreement with a scheduled payment date.
- Expected
- Claimed and assessed; payment date per the published standard.
- Eligible
- Your holding appears to qualify but nothing is claimed yet.
Benchmarking
How this compares with businesses like yours
A cohort is only useful if it is genuinely comparable, so it is built from farm type, soil grade, region and scale rather than from whoever happens to have signed up. Your own figure is never shown to anyone else.
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Units generated
Your figure appears hereLower quartile 23 Median 59 Upper quartile 77
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Price achieved per unit
Your figure appears hereLower quartile 33 Median 58 Upper quartile 86
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Income per hectare against agricultural alternative
Your figure appears hereLower quartile 35 Median 58 Upper quartile 72
-
Monitoring compliance rate
Your figure appears hereLower quartile 25 Median 60 Upper quartile 71
-
Habitat condition achieved against target
Your figure appears hereLower quartile 35 Median 45 Upper quartile 71
How the cohort is built
- Farm type
- Matched
- Soil grade
- Matched
- Region
- Matched
- Scale band
- Matched
- Cohort size
- Minimum 12 businesses, or no comparison is shown
Questions answered
What people ask about Biodiversity Net Gain
Does this replace the software I already use?
Not necessarily. Agrivencia integrates with authoritative sources and mainstream packages rather than insisting on replacing them. Where an incumbent does one job well, the platform connects to it; where the job spans several systems and nobody does it, the platform does it.
Will it work where I have no signal?
Yes. Field capture in Biodiversity Net Gain is offline first, storing locally and synchronising when a connection returns. Only around a fifth of UK farms report reliable signal across the whole holding, so this is a design assumption rather than a feature.
What happens when the scheme rules change?
Scheme rules are held as data rather than code, so a rate change, a cap change or a window closure is a content update that takes effect the same day. The platform also alerts you to what the change does to your own position.
Who owns the data I put in?
You do. The Farm Data Charter gives you a complete export in open formats at any time, and every instance of data sharing requires an explicit, revocable consent that is visible in your account.
Does it work if I farm across a border?
Yes, and that is one of the main reasons the platform exists. A business with land in more than one nation sees one reconciled view rather than two portals, with obligations and deadlines from both administrations in a single calendar.
Can my agronomist or land agent use it too?
Yes. You grant scoped, time-limited access per holding and per module, and you can revoke it in one click. Advisers never get a shared password or a blanket view.
What is the biggest limitation of this module?
Thirty-year obligation misunderstood at signature. Mitigated by explicit long-horizon modelling. We would rather state that plainly than let you discover it after signing.
Documents
Take it away with you
Everything here is printable and works on a kitchen table with no signal. Where a document asks for an email address, it says so on the button rather than after you press it.
Thirty Years for Ten Per Cent: Appraising a Biodiversity Net Gain Site
The practical handbook for biodiversity net gain: what the rules require, what the evidence has to show, and the mistakes that cost people money.
biodiversity net gain — evidence checklist
Every document an audit or a claim asks for, in the order it is asked for, with the validity period of each.
biodiversity net gain — record template
The record structure the module uses, as a spreadsheet, so a business not yet on the platform can start keeping it correctly today.
Data model reference
Entities, fields and integration points for biodiversity net gain, for advisers and software partners.
See Biodiversity Net Gain running on your own holding
Thirty minutes, using your parcels, your schemes and your enterprises rather than a sample farm. No obligation and no sales script — if it does not fit your business we will say so.
- Free tier available
- No card required
- Your data stays yours