The 28^th May 2021 represents a significant milestone in the history of Environet, being 25 years to the day since we started operating as a one-man band from my attic! We’ve come a long way since then and it’s been quite a journey to where we are today, in a 6,000 square foot Head Office with a dedicated team of 21 staff who now own 100% of the business and directly benefit from its growth and success.

So, how did we get here? I stumbled across Japanese knotweed quite accidentally in the early 1990s when I was working as an environmental consultant assessing contamination of land which happened to be affected by knotweed. I knew very little about it at the time but the owners asked me to remediate the problem which led to a great deal of research, a bit of trial and error and eventual success! I quickly realised there was significant demand for professional knotweed treatment and removal services – and so Environet was born.

A lot has changed since then, not just in our business but in the wider Japanese knotweed removal industry which has grown with us over the last quarter of a century. Here are some of the key milestones:

• 2008       We designed and developed the Xtract™ machine, enabling us to remove Japanese knotweed rhizome from the soil in a cost-effective and environmentally way.
• 2011       New tighter requirements imposed be lenders led to a rapidly increasing volume of  work, as awareness grew of the risk posed by Japanese knotweed.
• 2013       We introduced the first insurance-backed guarantees, backed by Lloyd’s, giving our clients reassurances that whatever happened, they’d be covered for potential regrowth.
• 2014       We moved into a 6,000 sq ft Head Office in Send, near Woking in Surrey, to accommodate all our staff, equipment and R&D activities on one site.
• 2016       We bought a parcel of land in Sussex infested with Japanese knotweed for use in R&D field trials
• 2020       Our game-changing Japanese knotweed detection dog service was launched, using highly trained sniffer dogs to detect the scent of knotweed rhizome beneath the ground.
• 2020       We win the PCA’s ‘Contractor of the Year 2020’ award, recognising Environet as the best in the business.
• 2020       Ownership of Environet was transferred in its entirety into an Employee Owned Trust, meaning our business became 100% owned by its staff.

Despite the challenges all businesses have faced from the Covid-19 pandemic, we have continued to grow and 2021 is on track to be our busiest ever year! That’s an exciting place to be as we look ahead to the next 25 years of operation.

Thank you to all our customers and our incredible team who have made this journey possible. And happy birthday to Environet!

Nic Seal

Founder and Managing Director