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How we manage biodiversity
We are on track to exceed the target set by our regulators of the number of hectares we actively manage for biodiversity. Our target is to manage 1,671 hectares (4,129 acres) by the end of March 2025.
We currently manage 1,650, which is 76% of our company owned land. By the end of March 2025 we expect to be managing 1,673, or 77% of our land, for biodiversity. This will be up from 54%, which is all we were managing when the project started in 2020.
This has been achieved by the number of biodiversity surveys and management plans we’ve put in place, 214 in total. In 2024 we carried out 36 resurveys, where we revisit a site to measure our progress, and we also surveyed a further 22 company sites to prepare new management plans.
Site surveys follow a biodiversity measure we created, that gives a score rating for how well the land is performing against 4 categories:
- Presence of habitats.
- Character and quality of habitats.
- The presence or potential presence of key species, such as nesting birds, dormice or badgers.
- Using the Dominant Abundant Frequent Occasional Rare species (DAFOR) rating to assess the number of species at sites.
Management plans detail the opportunities to enhance habitats for the benefit of biodiversity. Such as controlling invasive non-native species, such as Himalayan balsam or Japanese knotweed, which can damage the environment.
Watch our video:
There is so much more work that we are doing to protect the environment, and you can explore it all by clicking the button below.
