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UK’s first green infrastructure benchmark launches new digital case studies

Building with Nature, with support from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, release ground-breaking examples of how development can deliver better places for people and wildlife.

On Wednesday 27 April 2022 Building with Nature, the UK’s first green infrastructure benchmark, released a series of digital case studies illustrating how developers are delivering high-quality green infrastructure in developments using the Building with Nature Standards Framework.

Esmée Fairbairn Foundation provided funding for Building with Nature to publish a series of digital case studies, demonstrating to the built-environment sector how multi-functional green infrastructure can be delivered across a range of development scales and contexts.

The illustrated case studies, and associated video case studies, highlight how high-quality green infrastructure provides multiple benefits for people and wildlife, offering the health and wellbeing benefits of access to nature where people live and work, biodiversity enhancements and connectivity with the Nature Recovery Network, improvements to water quality and management, opportunities to deliver local responses to the climate emergency, (through active travel routes, carbon sequestration, urban cooling and flood management), and the creation of distinctive places that support thriving communities. The case studies also feature developers reflections on the benefits of using the Building with Nature Standards in their development and the value of achieving a Building with Nature Award for their scheme.

Building with Nature’s Director, Dr Gemma Jerome, FLI said:

“Building with Nature are supporting developers and planners, making it easy to understand how to put nature at the heart of development using the Building with Nature Standards Framework. These case studies bring the BwN Standards to life, providing practical examples of how to deliver multi-functional, high-quality green infrastructure in various development contexts across the UK, from small scale housing schemes to garden villages and community infrastructure.

There has never been a more pressing time to ‘raise the bar’ for industry and create, across the built-environment sector, a credible response to the climate, ecological and public health emergencies. We are delighted that Esmée Fairbairn Foundation have provided the support to enable us to offer developers and policy-makers real-life examples of great place-making.”