SSEN Transmission win top green energy for industry leading Biodiverity Net Gain Toolkit

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SSEN Transmission is celebrating after winning the Best Practice Award at this year’s Green Energy Awards.  

The Green Energy Awards showcase the very best in the renewables sector, bringing together over 1,200 industry professional to celebrate the years achievements. Recognising the people, organisations and communities going above and beyond to shape the industry’s future.

The Best Practice award recognises organisations who invest in health and safety, skills and diversity in order to protect, develop and empower their workforce.  The judges recognised SSEN Transmission for its outstanding sustainability credentials, demonstrating they have delivered beyond good practice to make long-term enhancements to the environment and for society. Specifically, their innovative approach to delivering Biodiversity Net Gain on new projects and a first of its kind biodiversity site optioneering toolkit.

The toolkit uses the principles of the DEFRA Biodiversity Metric to quantify the ‘potential’ biodiversity impact of different options, allowing it to be fully considered in the decision-making process. Following which, a more detailed biodiversity assessment will be undertaken for the chosen option. SSEN have successfully demonstrated their commitment to biodiversity at a number of its sites to date, including  Spittal and Tomatin substation projects, where the projects have been designed to achieve net gains of 34% an 47%.

The new approach has been underpinned by SSEN Transmission’s commitment to deliver No Net Loss on projects from 2020, and Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) on Projects from 2025.  Working across the industry and the public sector in Scotland to develop a new, innovative approach that embeds biodiversity considerations into every stage of the project lifecycle.

Richard Baldwin Head of Environment said:

“We are delighted to have to have won such a highly contested award, its great recognition of the hard work of everyone involved. We have a responsibility not only to facilitate low carbon generation deployment but also to develop our projects in a sustainable way.

We are proud to be leading BNG delivery in Scotland and actively sharing with the wider renewables sector.”