Embracing biodiversity for a sustainable future

**SPEAKER_2** (0:05)
Welcome to the AiDASH Evolve 2024 podcast.
AiDASH makes critical infrastructure industries climate resilient and sustainable with satellites and AI. Evolve 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana was our inaugural event. We gathered industry leaders, innovators and visionaries to explore how cutting edge technology and satellites and AI is safeguarding critical infrastructure and fostering biodiversity to ensure a sustainable future amidst climate change challenges. In this podcast series, we are recapping the entire event, every speaker and session. You can find it all on our content hub at ai-dot-com-slash-evolve2024 or check the show notes for all pertinent links. This episode delves into Biodiversity Net Gain or BNG. Simply put, Biodiversity Net Gain is an approach to development and or land management that aims to leave the natural environment in a measurably better state than it was beforehand. Last year, the UK enacted BNG rules as part of its Environment Act 2021 legislation. AiDASH Vice President of EMEA, Shashin Mishra, moderated the discussion about how the UK and other areas around the globe are safeguarding our food chain and environmental health. He spoke with Nick White, Principal Advisor, BNG for Natural England, and Sally Hayns, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, or CIEEM. Their discussion touched on several subtopics. They talked about how by integrating biodiversity into your utility planning, you create opportunities to turn risks into rewards and strengthen your bottom line. Thanks to the UK's approach to measuring biodiversity, which many countries are embracing, there's no need for utilities to start from square one to start planning and benchmark biodiversity. They also explained how building the case for biodiversity takes time and cooperation, and how you can avoid pitfalls. Here's Shashin, Nick, and Sally.

**Shashin Mishra** (2:14)
Hi, everyone. I'm Shashin. I'm the VP of EMEA for AiDASH. And I'm the one standing between you and the bar, because I'm going to be the moderator for the next two sessions.
I've got two great guests with me, but in this session and the next one, we're going to talk about biodiversity, improving habitats, natural capital, how do you improve them at scale, and what is the value that utilities can derive out of that. Before we continue, I'll just let the guests introduce. Sally.

**Sally Hayns** (2:47)
Thank you. Thank you very much for inviting me to be here. It's been a real pleasure. I'm Sally Hayns. I'm the Chief Exec of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, or Cieem for short, which is the professional body for ecologists and environmental managers in the UK, primarily in the UK and Ireland, although we do have members overseas, including the states.

**Nick White** (3:10)
And good afternoon, everyone. My name is Nick White. I'm a principal advisor for an organization called Natural England. And so we advise the government on environmental matters in England and the UK, and our particular focus is on working on biodiversity net gain, working with Sally, but also working with utility sector developers and landowners within England as well.

**Shashin Mishra** (3:32)
Thank you. So for those who don't know, the United Kingdom and particularly England passed a law earlier this year, had a law going to force earlier this year, which requires all developments in the country to improve biodiversity on the land as they do the development. Nick is the one who led the creation of the metrics, and Sally and Cieem, they are enabling the ecologists in the country to be able to support that. So what we want to be able to achieve through this conversation is give you a glimpse into how that is being done at the scale of a nation, and how can that knowledge can be transferred into the context of vast amount of land the utilities have to manage and improve in the US. So I started the first question around that. More in context of what the users might understand. So how is improving biodiversity and condition of habitats in general in line with the business goals for the utilities?

**Nick White** (4:28)
So over the course of today we've heard a lot about risk and the importance of resilience as well, making sure the networks keep providing power to people. The equally kind of challenges around cost, reductions in budgets, trying to deliver the same outcomes at the same time. And one of the things that historically has often been seen is nature and developments, infrastructure being in kind of tension or conflict with one another. But actually they're not. There's a real opportunity through how estates, how lines get managed and maintained, both to provide fantastic opportunities for nature. Often these can be the most valuable areas of habitats for wildlife to live in. But also managing areas in a way that also reduces that risk as well. Reduces the risk to the operator, increases the resilience and performance of those linear assets and it's kind of getting that conversation together. So, we were talking earlier about trees and the risk of trees falling onto power lines. And people, when they're thinking about a woodland or thinking about a forest, they kind of naturally default to trees as being really important. But actually, for nature's perspective, the really valuable spaces often aren't associated with the trees, it's the open areas as well, it's the open habitats you get. So, there is an opportunity to kind of manage estates in a way that helps with the performance and resilience of the network, but actually increasing the biodiversity value. And there's a growing kind of international and kind of local drive to, because of the nature crisis we're in, to look at nature almost as a new asset class coming forward as well. So, there's increasing levels of investment, there's private and kind of philanthropic investment going into that, which in England is paying people to actually manage their estates for nature as well. So, that means that for some infrastructure operators and other developers, they can get third parties to actually pay for that long-term management and maintenance as well. So, it ceases to be a cost to the actual kind of infrastructure owner. It's something that actually potentially becomes a financial asset to them.