The Government has at last revealed its long-awaited response to the mandatory biodiversity net gain consultation from January last year. While the concept has been in the pipeline since the 2019 Spring Statement, voluntary trading has been going on for some time. But now, the requirements will be laid down in law – from November 2023, all developers will have to deliver a 10% net gain in biodiversity, to offset the environmental damage they cause. As with any new legislation, there’s a lot of detail to unpick, so Richard Saunders, technical and policy adviser at the CAAV, explains what it all means.