Designing cities that benefit both people and nature will help to conserve threatened species and improve human wellbeing. By considering biodiversity from the beginning of the planning process, BSUD helps to simplify biodiversity-friendly design, which can then deliver a broad range of nature conservation and liveability outcomes.

The BSUD framework was created by Garrard et al. (2018) to be applied across a range of urban development types. The aim of the framework is to create suburbs that are of net benefit to native species and ecosystems through the provision of essential resources.

BSUD is innovative in the field of sustainable urban development as it focusses on creating onsite gains for biodiversity. By identifying synergies between development and biodiversity objectives, BSUD improves the transparency of decision making and represents a fundamental shift in the way we think about including biodiversity in urban planning.