Project Evergreen Fund. Five years of habitat creation

Wildfell, where it all began

 Wildfell is one of our own and most significant sustainable ventures,

Evergreen drives measurable environmental impact through Biodiversity Net Gain and Carbon Sequestration. Our scheme at Wildfell is a fine example of both. Located within the South Suffolk and North Essex Clayland National Character Area and adjacent to the River Pant, Wildfell serves as a habitat bank for 340 off-site biodiversity net gain units and large-scale woodland creation and rewilding for carbon offsetting.

Ground Control invested two million pounds of the Evergreen fund to purchase the humble Gray’s Farm in Braintree, back in 2021, through the fund. Five years on, this 296-acre redundant arable farmland has been transformed into Wildfell, a thriving epicentre of new wildlife habitats comprising woodland, scrub, ponds, individual trees, orchard, grassland, and hedgerows. 

The scheme also forms part of a wider environmental strategy alongside community outreach and woodland planting for carbon credits.

Swipe left to see Wildfell in 2025.  Swipe right to see how it looked in 2021

Creating high-integrity biodiversity net gain (BNG) units

Developers can secure biodiversity units for the following habitat types:

• Woodland habitats of high distinctiveness
• Heathland and shrub habitats of medium distinctiveness
• Grassland habitats of medium distinctiveness
• Lake habitats of medium to high distinctiveness
• Hedgerow habitats of high to very high distinctiveness

Devana habitat bank in South Cambridgeshire

But we don’t just have Wildfell. In 2023, the Evergreen fund purchased Devana, another underused farm to be transformed into a habitat bank for BNG and nature recovery. Based in South Cambridgeshire, the 100-acre site was one of the first BNG habitat banks in England on the National Biodiversity Net Gain site register. Through South Cambridgeshire District Council, the site currently offers over 215 biodiversity net gain units, in the form of grassland, hedgerow, shrub and mixed heath, woodland and forest, lake and ponds, and other mixed woodland.

More habitat banks on the horizon

We are so excited about the future of our two habitat banks and give a huge kudos to those who built them. But it doesn’t end in East Anglia. With plans to build another habitat bank further north imminent, and a fourth clearly on the horizon, we are confident that we’ll soon be serving BNG units to developers across the nation. We won’t stop there, though. We’ll replicate success and best practice across our international territories – bringing better habitats to GC Ireland, and beyond.

Building ecosystems, enhancing communities

However, our ambitions dig deeper than growing revenue streams from the sale of BNG units nationwide. Evergreen is also about species enrichment and creating the right habitats for nature to thrive in. By doing this, we are not only enriching ecosystems that put food on our plates, but also contributing to global climate change and community wellbeing.

Trusted partnerships

We’ve been doing this at Wildfell since 2021, engaging environmental experts and local stakeholders to produce these habitats and demonstrate best practices. We’ve leveraged support from a range of partners, including local landowners, councils, Essex Wildlife Trust, RSPB, Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Plantlife, Dragonfly Trust, Farming & Wildlife Action Group (FWAG) East, Environment Agency, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, and the Forestry Commission. This helped inform the design using the best local knowledge and experience, along with developing ongoing partnerships for the future management and monitoring of our sites. 

We engaged clients and partners in various stages of the habitat creation scheme over the past five years by providing volunteer planting opportunities to our customers, staff, and supply chain partners, and conservation surgeries such as a recent bee safari led by the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust. Wildfell, as an educational facility, was bolstered in 2024 by the opening of a new purpose-built barn for educational workshops and community engagement.

Woodland creation and net zero commitments

As part of our carbon sequestration commitment, the Evergreen fund dedicates £100,000 each to native tree planting, serving as a catalyst and amplifier to projects with our customers, government organisations, charities, private landowners, and other partners.

We set a target to plant one million trees by 2025, which we exceeded in 2023. In addition to our woodland creation schemes at Wildfell and Devana, Evergreen has also enabled over 13 large-scale woodland creation projects across the nation. Including ‘Ourboretum’ with Cotswold Conservation Trust and BBC Radio Gloucester, ‘Make it Wild’ in Yorkshire and Eastham Country Park, The Wirral – to name a few.

Consequently, Evergreen is playing a huge role in our commitment to becoming carbon net-zero by 2038, as verified by the SBTi (Science Based Targets Initiative).

Conclusion

From buying farmland, to conducting baseline surveys, to designing and remodelling landscapes and creating new habitats, we would like to give a huge thanks to our partners and volunteers that have supported the Evergreen journey over the past five years and put us in a great position to deliver onsite and offsite biodiversity for the next 30 years of a net zero future.