Environment Bank

A difficult CMS should not stand in the way of your growth. As market leaders in Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), Environment Bank’s success in large-scale nature restoration projects led to tremendous and rapid business growth. Their CMS had clunky registration forms, lacked useful filters, and didn’t have the visuals or functionality to showcase their widespread BNG network. Ultimately, they realised their digital presence no longer represented their progressive work and they struggled to appeal to varied audiences. Actively seeking a values-aligned market leader, it became evident that our teams were primed for seamless co-creation of a new website design and build.

Ensuring a website speaks to and supports the journeys of multiple audiences is a challenge we’re posed with regularly at Wholegrain. However in Environment Bank’s case, getting this right was a primary success metric. Land Owners, Developers, BNG partners and Businesses all come to them for different reasons, and making personalised journeys was key.

To delve into the ‘Who, What, How’ of their business, our UX Lead conducted a series of stakeholder interviews and workshops, which complimented the website and competitor analyses. These activities defined the website layout, components, and sitemap with their audience’s priorities front of mind creating journeys that matched their individual intents.

Our design teams joined forces to collaboratively move the brand forwards. With updated brand guidelines provided, it was important for us to translate them for the web, while also conveying the maturity of Environment Bank’s market position and the breadth of their work.

Environment Bank’s website is a testament that sustainable design and development does not mean a compromise on creativity. Working with their crisp DM sans font, beautiful colour palette and personalised photography helped to give Environment Bank a unique and memorable feel. Their team trusted us to take the lead on where to push low-carbon web design application of the structure and their revitalised brand. We were able to achieve a 96% reduction in CO2 generated every visit to the homepage! (and a magnificent visual experience too!)

The technically complex but welcomed challenge was designing and developing a high-impact map of Environment Bank’s BNG network. Google Maps is a popular choice, but it’s not the only option out there! With a desire for a visually engaging, sustainable site, our team created a bespoke map using SVG markup and native browser interactivity to link regions to a list of banks. It successfully showcases the breadth of their work across England in an accessible and a low-carbon way. It clearly displays upcoming projects, encouraging audiences to get in touch to be involved with the BNG Network.

Launch day was a success as it coincided with the 1 year anniversary of BNGs! As the BNG policy provides a clear framework for developers, Environment Bank’s redesigned website provides clear journeys, calls-to-action and impact stories on why they are the right partner to collaborate with for nature restoration projects.

Their internal team now has a website they are proud of and a CMS they feel confident to update and manage, future-proofing the business as it continues to grow.