The Environmental Benefits from Nature Tool (EBNT)

This spreadsheet tool is designed to work alongside the Biodiversity Metric to explore the changes (gains or losses) in 18 Ecosystem Services following land-use change. It could be used to indicate the wider outcomes – both benefits and trade-offs – of NbS projects. The user enters habitat types and areas before and after the intervention, together with up to 40 indicators of habitat condition and location (such as tree size, canopy cover, nature designations and public accessibility). For some services, the tool asks the user to indicate whether habitats are in the optimum place to deliver a service. For example, it asks the user whether trees or hedgerows are in a suitable location to provide a noise or air pollution barrier between a busy road and a residential building or school, or whether trees are in a suitable location to provide shade to a building.

The EBNT is based on scores from zero to 10, and is not a biophysical model. Its purpose is to encourage consideration of the full range of outcomes across a wide range of ecosystem services, to encourage more holistic design that delivers multiple benefits and minimises trade-offs.