What is Green Infrastructure

What is Green Infrastructure?

Well designed and managed Green Infrastructure (GI) generates multiple benefits for people and nature and creates greener, healthier places to live that supports a more productive economy. For more information on what good green infrastructure is, and why it’s important, see the 'What' and 'Why' GI Principles.

A Green Infrastructure network can include street trees, green roofs/walls, parks, private gardens, allotments, sustainable drainage systems, through to wildlife areas, woodlands, wetlands and natural flood management functioning at local and landscape scale. Linear GI includes roadside verges, green bridges, field margins, rights of way, access routes, and canals and rivers.

Improvements can be delivered as part of new development via the planning system, upgrading of existing GI, and retrofitting of new GI in areas where provision is poor. For more information on how to do good GI, see the 'How' GI Principles.

Watch this Green Infrastructure explainer film to find out what green infrastructure is and why it matters.

What is Green Infrastructure?

Natural Capital

Delivering high quality, well designed and maintained GI can help grow the natural capital of city-regions, rural-urban fringe (including Green Belts) and rural areas. GI can be seen as a collection of connected natural capital assets managed to provide ecosystem services and benefits for people and nature.

Biodiversity Net Gain

The GI Framework will work alongside Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), which will set a minimum requirement for a 10% net gain for biodiversity for new development. BNG is designed to encourage habitat protection, enhancement and creation on-site and in the local area where possible, helping to support GI which is accessible to local communities. Managers of urban parks and other green infrastructure will be able to become providers of biodiversity units provided they are able to create new or enhance existing habitat on their land and meet the relevant eligibility criteria.

The Biodiversity Metric is used to calculate biodiversity net gain includes within it many common green infrastructure habitat features, such as sustainable drainage systems, green roofs and walls etc and their inclusion in a scheme design can contribute towards meeting BNG requirements. Full guidance on the use and application of the Biodiversity Metric is available.

The GI Framework can help to enhance the functionality of habitat delivered as a requirement of BNG. The emphasis in the Framework on the multiple benefits of GI can help ensure nature delivers wider benefits for people as well as biodiversity.

The Green Infrastructure Standards, including the Urban Greening Factor (UGF), promote nature-rich environments that increase the functionality, sustainability, and climate resilience of urban areas. UGFs can be used alongside BNG, especially on sites with no or very limited pre-existing biodiversity value, to drive urban greening by helping to set the quantity and functionality of green infrastructure that should be delivered on-site. Natural England’s voluntary Environmental Benefits from Nature tool is designed to work alongside BNG and UGF to enable more detailed consideration of wider environmental benefits for people and nature.

Some Biodiversity Net Gain delivery may incorporate access. Where this is the case, the GI Mapping Database can help identify where there are gaps in accessible green space that new measures could address. It could also help to target these measures to areas where they are most needed e.g., in areas of high deprivation.

Guidance on applying BNG in development should be followed. The benefits of BNG are set out in a brochure. Guidance for mandatory BNG is currently being developed by Government and will be available shortly.

Local Nature Recovery Strategies

Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs) are new locally led, mandatory spatial strategies for nature required by the Environment Act 2021. LNRSs are tools designed to drive more coordinated, practical, and focussed action to help nature and establish the Nature Recovery Network. The strategies are intended to work closely alongside other measures in the Act to support delivery of mandatory biodiversity net gain and provide a focus for a strengthened duty on all public authorities to conserve and enhance biodiversity. They will also help to develop partnerships and to integrate nature into our incentives and land management activities. 

Government consulted on how LNRSs will be rolled out across England. Responses to this consultation are informing the preparation of regulations and guidance that will shape LNRS roll-out and will be issued in due course. Guidance on how Local Planning Authorities need to have regard to LNRSs will also be made available.

LNRSs will provide a shared spatial framework for improving local environments and draw on other relevant spatial plans and strategies such as GI strategies. It will be important to link GI strategies to Local Nature Recovery Strategies so that they work together and support each other. In due course Local Nature Recovery Strategies will provide an important framework for developing and applying green infrastructure policies to promote urban nature conservation.

GI strategies and polices can be used to support aspirations for a Nature Recovery Network (NRN), connecting across urban, urban-fringe, coastal and rural areas and enhancing landscape character. Applying the new Headline Green Infrastructure Standard for Urban Nature Recovery will help to support the creation and restoration of wildlife rich habitats. Green infrastructure will also help urban districts and local authorities, in particular to meet their statutory duty to conserve and enhance biodiversity.

The GI Mapping Database can provide a data layer that informs the mapping of areas important for nature recovery, including nature-rich corridors that support movement of wildlife, and the data can feed into the LNRS. In the next phase, the GI Mapping will include more detailed urban habitat and naturalness maps, which could be used to inform LNRSs. The mapping of accessible natural green space can be used alongside local data to provide information on how the NRN can function to enable everyone to access and connect with nature close to home.

Good quality GI is important for nature and can support our aspirations for a Nature Recovery Network (NRN), connecting across urban, urban-fringe, coastal and rural areas and enhancing landscape character. The GI Framework can inform delivery of the NRN and this will continue to evolve as we develop more elements of the Framework.

The GI Mapping Database can provide a data layer that informs the mapping of areas important for nature recovery, including nature-rich corridors that support movement of wildlife. The mapping of accessible natural greenspace can be used alongside local data to provide information on how the NRN can function to enable everyone to access and connect with nature close to home.