The remediation of contaminated sites, and the productive reuse of marginal, derelict and vacant land, is often focused solely on built development or a return to agriculture. This is as a result of the traditional approaches to valuing land which prioritise built/manufactured capital over natural or social capital.

The Global Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework, to be signed by political leaders around the world at COP15 in Kunming, China this year, heralds a new approach to dealing with natural resources and sets out a vision for a world living in harmony with nature. As governments around the world seek to make the targets emerging from COP15 and COP26 into a strong, measured and prioritised set of actions, it is clear that we all need to change the way we act, think and measure success. Part of this is the recognition of land as a limited resource and ensuring that our demands on land and the natural environment are sustainable. In this context, we need to be able to understand the best end use of remediated sites, which may not always be built development.  

In this webinar, Jon Davies will explore the use of biodiversity net gain and environmental net gain to shape the right outcomes for remediation projects.  

Our speaker

Jon Davies has been a Director at RSK Biocensus since September 2019. Before that he worked for 23 years with the Ecology Team at Arcadis and its precursor companies (Cresswell Associates and then Hyder Consulting). Jon was Head of Ecology for his last four years at Arcadis. In early 2020, he was made a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. 

Jon’s main area of expertise is in assessing the impacts of development on biodiversity, with a particular focus on invertebrates. Given the nature of brownfield land, which is often very important for invertebrates, he has a particular interest in site remediation and its implications for biodiversity, both in terms of constraints and opportunities.  In July 2020, Jon launched RSK Wilding, aimed at offsetting our clients’ ecological, carbon and other environmental impacts through habitat restoration and creation. He now leads a team of ecologists specialising in BNG, habitat restoration and biodiversity offsetting, and works with developers and landowners alike (including National Grid, Wild East and Network Rail) to bring about net environmental gain.