4 Land use and ecology

Biodiversity Net Gain – Sites with a zero baseline - KBCN1884

When assessing a site with no ecological features, pre-development, the "BREEAM-CEEQUAL-HQM-Change-in-Ecological-Value-Calculator" tool available in BREEAM Projects, can be used to calculate the percentage biodiversity net gain from a zero baseline. This method caps the percentage biodiversity net gain, so the maximum number of credits that can be achieved using this approach is as follows:

• BREEAM UK New Construction 2018/V6 = 3 credits
• BREEAM UK New Construction Residential V6.1 / Home Quality Mark = 6 Credits
• BREEAM Infrastructure V6 = 30 Credits

The cap on percentage biodiversity net gain seeks to ensure comparability between assessments, as it may be easier to achieve a high score from a zero baseline.

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Using the CLIMB Model for Ecological Enhancement - KBCN1646

BREEAM Recognises CLIMB 1.2 Model as a means of complying with the requirements in BREEAM Infrastructure Issue 4.4 instead of the DEFRA Metric or BREEAM LUE calculator. The calculation you must do to get the percentage improvement in Biodiversity Net Gain from the CLIMB 1.2 model is as follows Percentage Improvement in Biodiversity Net Gain Legend

Notation	Term	Equation
A	Area in Hectares	-
NV	Factor for Natural Value	-
L	Factor for Landscape Value	-
S	Difficulty Factor	-
L	Factor for Time	-
I	Factor for Indirect Influence	-
T0	before influence/action	-
T1	after impact/action	-
U	Present value CLIMB units
V	Fabricated CLIMB units by creating biotopes
X	CLIMB units lost through deterioration of the biotope
Y	CLIMB units lost through indirect impact
Z	CLIMB units lost through indirect impact

The credit allocation is for BREEAM Infrastructure is as follows:

CLIMB Model 1.2 Percentage Improvement in Biodiversity Net Gain	BREEAM Infrastructure V6 Credits Awarded
Less than -25%	0
Between -24% and -6%	10
Between -5% and 4%	20
Between 5% and 9%	30
10% and above	40

Please provide the CLIMB Model tool and supporting documentation as evidence for your assessment. Please also note that CLIMB units for offsite enhancements are not recognised by BREEAM Infrastructure, therefore the above calculation should only consider onsite enhancement.

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