About

Building with Nature is the UK’s first green infrastructure benchmark. It is a voluntary accreditation scheme that enables developers, who want to go beyond the statutory requirements, to create places that really deliver for people and wildlife. The scheme brings together guidance and good practice to recognise high quality green infrastructure at all stages of the development process. It has been developed by practitioners and policy makers, academic experts and end-users, and has been tried and tested in multiple schemes from Cornwall to Scotland. In Essex, the principles contained with the Building with Nature programme are as pertinent as ever as we plan for unprecedented levels of growth.

If you want to create a high-quality place for people and wildlife, you can use the framework of standards to reflect on the task you are undertaking, including policy writing, land allocation, master-planning, detailed design, implementation, management or maintenance. 

The Standards

The framework of standards is divided into four themes:

• Core Standards - Distinguish green infrastructure from a more conventional approach to provision for open and green space.
• Wellbeing Standards - Secure health and wellbeing benefits through the delivery of green infrastructure features close to where people live.
• Water Standards - Managing water quantity and quality, and maximising opportunities for amenity and biodiversity.
• Wildlife Standards - Create places where nature can flourish, both within the boundary of the scheme, and at a landscape scale.

Accreditation

There are three levels of accreditation:

• Design Award - used to accredit projects at an early stage of design, for example an outline planning application in larger schemes
• Full Award - used to accredit projects, or phases of a multi-phase project, at the detailed design stage (e.g. for a full planning or reserved matters application) and at post-completion in-use
• Policy Award - used to recognise strategic policy documentation that commits to high-quality GI
• National Award - used to spotlight a specific awarded project (typically completed and in-use)

Applications are invited at any stage in the development process: pre-application, reserved matters application, and post-construction/in-use. If you decided to pursue Building with Nature accreditation, please contact Place Services who have Qualified Building with Nature Assessors within our Landscape team who can work with you to assess the scheme and prepare your accreditation application. If you are successful, you will be awarded with the Building with Nature Accreditation and Marque. You will also be provided with an evaluation report which details the strengths of your scheme. This can be used to support a planning application for design awards or communicate the benefits of your scheme to your network of stakeholders.

Once the entire scheme or each phase of your scheme is completed, the Building for Nature Assessor would also return to conduct a post-construction check. The report from this site visit would then be used to see whether the commitments are being delivered and then reported to Building with Nature for audit.

 If you would like to find out more about Building with Nature, the standards and the process, please visit: www.buildingwithnature.org.uk