In TV programmes like Who Do You Think You Are?, lost connections and unfamiliar histories are revealed as celebrities trace their family trees. So here, following the TV programme format, we discover stories of “courage, joy, sacrifice and resilience” as we explore the family history of RSK Biocensus – “everyone has a tale to tell”.
Although RSK Biocensus was formed in 2019, its origins trace back over more than 20 years. Ecological consultancies started to emerge in the 1990s, offering advice to developers navigating compliance with environmental legislation and planning processes. Our professional body the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM) was formed in 1991 (attaining its Royal Charter in 2013), and there are staff in RSK Biocensus today who have been in the business since the early 1990s.
RSK Group was established in 1989 as an integrated environmental, engineering and technical services business. Originally, there were only a handful of ecologists, who were based in the multidisciplinary RSK Environment team, and when Tom Smith (our managing director since October 2023) joined in 2003, he increased the numbers to 5!
One of the largest projects the RSK team worked on was the South Wales (Milford Haven to Tirley) gas pipeline (the largest infrastructure project of its time), where they worked with ecologists from Carter Ecological and Cresswell Associates. The team worked with Carter Ecological on other gas pipeline projects and in 2007, RSK bought out the 30 or so ecologists in Carter Ecological to form RSK Carter Ecological.
Biocensus was incorporated in 2002 by a group of friends working at the Defra badger research unit in Woodchester Park, Gloucestershire. Initially it was just Tim Hounsome (until recently the managing director of RSK Biocensus). Over time he was joined by Richard Young (now managing director of Nature Positive), Richard (Dez) Delahay, Gavin Wilson and Steph Wray. Some of the first work done by Tim at Biocensus was with Cresswell Associates, carrying out bird surveys at Llandarcy in South Wales. Biocensus took off seriously in 2008 when Tim went full time and employed a network of other consultants as subcontractors (keeping overheads down but giving clients access to an unlimited range of technical experts throughout the UK).
Cresswell Associates was formed by Stephanie Wray and Warren Cresswell as an independent ecological consultancy in 1995, before it was acquired by Hyder Consulting in 2006 and subsequently incorporated into Arcadis in 2014. Steph joined Biocensus in 2009 and then became RSK’s chief sustainability officer and the founder of Nature Positive. In 2019, RSK Carter Ecological and Biocensus merged to form RSK Biocensus, with a staff of about 55 ecologists, and it has expanded since to the present numbers of around 180 staff in 13 offices across several businesses. Part of this expansion included the influx of 15 staff from the Arcadis ecology team, including quite a few original Cresswell Associates staff.
The ‘Web of Life’ describes how ecological networks interact, and the interdependence between living organisms and the natural environment. Just like with the evolution of our ecosystems, the ‘family history’ of as a leading ecological consultancy reveals a web of interactions between staff and past consultancies, a growing network of new talent and a resilient, forward-thinking ‘ecosystem’ of ecologists that forms today’s successful RSK Biocensus.