Natural environment

Supporting biodiversity, building partnerships and exploring the ways concrete can benefit nature and society are among the key areas of our focus for supporting the natural environment.​

Our goal is to develop solutions for a regenerative built environment, incorporate natural capital in decision making, and deliver wider ecosystem benefits such as biodiversity net gain. Quarrying or mineral extraction is a temporary land use, once extraction has finished the land can be restored to a range of end uses. Some, such as restoration to nature can deliver multiple benefits including landscape and nature, recreation, and a range of wider ‘ecosystem services’ such as water storage and flood management, landscape enhancement, and carbon sequestration. ​

Our concrete strategy adopts the MPA Biodiversity strategy which aims to protect and enhance biodiversity and deliver net gain wherever possible. The aims and objectives of the Biodiversity strategy cannot be achieved in isolation, and it is therefore important that we continue to work with our partners and other relevant organisations. ​
Concrete can also be used to support regenerative design and nature-based solutions in development projects.

New products are evolving to provide conditions suitable as a natural habitat [concrete as a habitat example in case studies Link]on or in the concrete itself. As we progress our understanding and actions in the context of sustainability, we aim to explore further the role of concrete in a regenerative system which is resilient, adaptable, and can evolve to produce net positive impacts.​