Our Time at GeoBusiness 2026
This year EcoSpatial both exhibited and presented, speaking with professionals across infrastructure, engineering, environmental consultancy, GIS, digital construction, government, academia, software, and standards organisations. I am blown away at the success of the event for us
For those who missed the presentation, I spoke about “How to Submit a FRIDAS Compliant Package” and why Biodiversity Net Gain is fundamentally a spatial and data-driven policy, relying on trusted boundaries, habitat geometry, attributes, and metadata to produce reliable outcomes.
From my conversations it was very clear that GIS and environmental teams are spending significant amounts of time fixing avoidable BNG data issues. Common challenges included:
misaligned boundaries
inconsistent formats
poor digitising
missing metadata
fragmented workflows and rework between disciplines
The presentation explored why BNG needs to be treated as a design and information management requirement, rather than a final-stage metric exercise, and how implementing FRIDAS principles from the start can:
✅ reduce GIS rework and costs
✅ improve coordination between ecology, GIS, planning, and design teams
✅ strengthen confidence in submissions
✅ support better long-term biodiversity outcomes
We also introduced:
the FRIDAS Score: a risk-led score assessing confidence in BNG datasets
FRIDAS Dataset Audits: launching this Autumn
the FRIDAS Partner Programme: recognising organisations implementing strong BNG data practices across projects and workflows
A lot more to come about these!
A huge thank you to everyone who came to the session or stopped by to discuss FRIDASwith us. Our time at GeoBusiness confirmed this is a conversation the industry is ready to have.
I’ll add the registration link for Autumn audits and partner interest below
FRIDAS Early Access - Data Validation Audits – Fill out form
Access our whitepaper, GIS data standard, and more info about FRIDAS here: www.ecospatial.co.uk/fridas
