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Celebrating biodiversity excellence in the built environment: Reflections on the 2025 CIRIA Biodiversity Challenge Awards

Richard Thomas, Group ESG Director, Trustgreen

This year, I had the privilege of serving as both the Master of Ceremonies and Chair of the Judging Panel for the CIRIA Biodiversity Challenge Awards  held at the beautiful WWT London Wetland Centre. The event brought together an inspiring cross-section of organisations, professionals and projects, all demonstrating how our industry can meaningfully integrate biodiversity and nature recovery into the heart of construction and development.

Now in its twelfth year, the Biodiversity Challenge Awards continue to grow in both scale and influence. This year’s entries showcased how far the built environment has come in embedding biodiversity as a key measure of success — not an afterthought. From urban greening initiatives and large-scale habitat restoration to innovative partnerships between developers, local authorities, and conservation groups, every submission reflected a genuine commitment to delivering positive outcomes for nature.

The quality of entries was truly exceptional. The judging panel had the difficult but rewarding task of assessing a record number of applications that went beyond compliance — demonstrating creative, scalable and replicable approaches to biodiversity enhancement. The winners and highly commended entries stood out not only for the quality of their ecological outcomes but also for their long-term stewardship, community engagement and measurable environmental gains.

Among this year’s standout projects were initiatives that demonstrated:

  • Nature-based design principles driving regeneration and place-making.
  • Cross-sector collaboration, bringing together developers, engineers, ecologists, and local communities.
  •  Measurable biodiversity net gains supported by monitoring, innovation, and adaptive management.

It was particularly encouraging to see small organisations and grassroots projects recognised alongside national infrastructure and corporate leaders — proving that scale is no barrier to making a meaningful difference.

The CIRIA Biodiversity Challenge Awards play a vital role in driving positive change across the built environment. They not only celebrate achievement but also help raise the bar, inspiring others to adopt biodiversity-led thinking from project inception through to delivery and legacy.

As biodiversity loss and climate change remain defining challenges of our time, our industry has both the responsibility and the opportunity to respond. Events like this reinforce the message that biodiversity enhancement is fundamental to sustainable development — integral to resilience, community wellbeing, and the creation of places where people and nature thrive together.

Reflecting on this year’s event, I am filled with optimism. The creativity, expertise and passion on display demonstrate that the UK’s built environment sector is rising to the challenge — not just meeting statutory Biodiversity Net Gain requirements, but truly embracing the spirit of ecological regeneration.

Congratulations to all the winners, highly commended teams, and everyone who took part in this year’s awards. It was an honour to help celebrate your achievements and shine a light on the incredible work being done to make our built environment more biodiverse, resilient, and sustainable.