This year sees the appearance of a new tab in the Green Impact workbook, the Grounds Tab. So, not only will the SITraN team be aiming to achieve the double gold again for buildings and labs but it would be nice to be able to achieve something, maybe a bronze, in this new area as well. I have been looking at this new tab in the workbook and been thinking about how we can achieve this. We have already purchased some FSC bird boxes and installed them around the grounds in time for next year’s nesting season; they even survived the strong winds last Thursday!
Chris Hobbs, our new Green Impact Champion, has been researching how to make a bee hotel and has been pouring over web sites on their construction and design and the newly made hotel will be making an appearance at SITraN in the next couple of weeks. This will help local bees find a safe place to over winter in the SITraN grounds until the weather starts to improve next year.
We have a green roof at SITraN which is being used currently as a research site for a PhD project by Tom Young from Animal and Plant Sciences; this will allow us to complete another item in the grounds tab.
The other thing I have been working on relating to the grounds tab is a tree replacement policy which I will need to get approved by the SITraN management team. This policy will ensure that any trees we loose from the site will be replaced by saplings of a native species. There is quite a lot of work to do relating to this new tab but I am hoping that we will be able to complete enough to allow us to qualify for a bronze award in the grounds tab.
Tom Young carrying out his research on the green roof and Dan Fillingham, one of the SITraN green Impact team installing bird boxes at SITraN.
Making a difference together …
