About David Hill
Professor David Hill CBE is Founding Owner and Chairman of Environment Bank, which he established in 2007.
Environment Bank is a leading UK environmental organisation, focusing on large-scale nature recovery to tackle biodiversity loss and the climate emergency.
Through its work, Environment Bank is leading the way in deploying private investment into private landholdings, as the only way to achieve nature recovery at scale.
Since launching Environment Bank, David has introduced the concept of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) to the UK, as well as pioneering the concept of compensation via biodiversity and conservation banking to the UK, to secure net biodiversity gains from all development.
Based on his decades of experience in the biodiversity sector, David is passionate about investment into nature-based solutions. He has utilised this passion in bringing a pioneering new investment model to the UK, working with farmers, landowners, developers, local authorities and planners to formulate an effective habitat banking model.
Thanks to David’s extensive lobbying and proof of the success of the conservation credits model through the Environment Bank approach, the UK Government now mandates BNG as a requirement of the planning and development control system. This was enshrined in law in the Environment Act 2021.
David’s conception of biodiversity compensation, ensuring developments provide net gains to biodiversity, has also been embedded into the UK Government’s 25-year Environment Plan and the National Planning Policy Framework.
David’s Experience
A passionate ecologist, David has a doctorate in ecology from Oxford University and is one of the leading experts in conservation and biodiversity. He was a founding member and Deputy Chair of Natural England, the UK Government’s statutory advisory body on natural heritage.
David is also a former member of the UK Government Ecosystem Markets Taskforce and was previously on the Board of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee.
He is also a Board Trustee and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, recent Chair of the conservation charity Plantlife International, Chair of the Northern Upland Nature Partnership, and Commissioner with the independent Food Farming and Countryside Commission.
David is also a Fellow and former President of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management.
He is Co-Founder of the NatureSpace Partnership, providing solutions for protected species involving the creation of habitats, to improve the way that species are conserved within the planning system.
Investing in the Natural World
David is an expert in investment in the natural environment.
He is evangelical about promoting the value of the natural environment to a range of stakeholders, including lawmakers, landowners, developers, planners, planning authorities and large corporations. He speaks regularly on the role of environmental markets in tackling biodiversity loss and climate change.
He has authored and edited several books, including the Handbook of Biodiversity Methods and The Pheasant: Ecology, Management and Conservation[1] .
David has won a number of awards, including Sustainability Entrepreneur of the Year at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, and has been shortlisted for a Lifetime Achievement Awards at the upcoming People Environment Achievement (PEA) awards.
He is also a prolific wildlife photographer, and has a farm dedicated to conservation in North Yorkshire.
