Professor David Hill

David Hill is Chairman and co-founder of The Environment Bank Ltd, Deputy Chair of Natural England and a member of the Board of the UK government’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee. Over the past three years he has been actively involved in promoting new and innovative ways of mitigating for impacts on ecosystem services arising from development and business through the use of habitat or mitigation banking.

He has a doctorate in ecology from the University of Oxford and has worked for a number of NGOs before establishing one of the first environmental consultancies in the UK, which he merged with a plc in 2002.

He has a strong professional interest in biodiversity conservation and, as a result of over 20 years working in the planning and development control sector, believes that the majority of development should pay the true cost of the use of land through implementing a policy for habitat banking, making landscapes more resilient, increasing biodiversity and providing better places for people to enjoy.

The Environment Bank Ltd is the first company of its kind in the UK. It develops the ideas and mechanism for funding enhancements to the natural environment from development and holds a register of potential contributor landowners. It is likely that emerging environmental markets will focus on offsetting ecosystem service impacts and The Environment Bank is working to provide the necessary infrastructure to facilitate these markets.