Nature supports our lives, economy, and society. However, we are now facing significant global nature loss due to human activity. This is of particular concern in the United Kingdom as we are now considered to be one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries1.

Enhancing wellbeing through nature

We acknowledge the intrinsic value of nature and the key role it has in supporting the health and wellbeing of our occupiers and visitors at our places. We also recognise the role we can play in enhancing it.

We have been supporting nature at our places for more than a decade and are now working with our ecologists to finalise our Nature Strategy and targets. Here, we outline the public realm improvements at our Regent’s Place campus and the benefits it has had to both nature and people. The project ran in two phases, completing in March 2023.

Enhancing nature in public spaces for the community

Regent’s Place is our 13-acre mixed use campus located on the Euston Road where Camden, Fitzrovia and the Knowledge Quarter meet. Prior to the public realm improvement works, the campus was primarily concrete with little greenery or opportunity for people to sit and socialise. Therefore, we knew that we wanted to revitalise the public realms, enhancing nature and providing places for people to interact whilst engaging with nature.

Transforming Triton Square

The project team consulted with local communities to create a shared vision for the project. This vision had two key aims – to transform the existing hardstanding public realms into areas with lush greenery and to provide inclusive spaces that could be enjoyed by all.

The first phase was delivered in conjunction with the redevelopment of 1 Triton Square and focused on providing additional ground planters and seating areas around the building.

The second phase was considerably larger and involved introducing new ground planters across the campus and implementing one of London’s largest living walls. Biotecture worked with Townshend on this project to create the 350 sqm BioPanel, which is composed of around 22,000 plants and incorporates 50 bug hotels.

In addition to this, we erected three oak pavilions down Triton Street. These pavilions were created from a collaboration between Nex Architecture and Xylotek. Our contractor on this project, Maylim, won a Principal British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) National Landscape Award (2).

Significant biodiversity and ecosystem gains

Following the completion of the project Greengage, our ecologists, measured the associated biodiversity net gain and ecosystem services uplift. The project has enabled a 91% improvement in biodiversity net gain due to the change from developed land to green spaces. A variety of different flowering plants, shrubs and grasses were chosen, providing increased food sources for invertebrates and then in turn for birds and bats. There have also been significant improvements in the provision of ecosystem services as habitat provision and connectivity have increased. The scores for human wellbeing have improved through sensory and thermal comfort means as the project has provided more shaded areas and opportunities to connect with nature.

We welcome conversations with customers who are interested in learning more about our biodiversity approach and how we can collaborate.

Increasing biodiversity across our Regent’s Place campus

1 From the 2023 State of Nature report - https://stateofnature.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/TP25999-State-of-Nature-main-report_2023_FULL-DOC-v12.pdf

2 https://www.maylim.co.uk/principal-award-bali-regents-place/