Welcome to my first blog post as Carbon Reduction and Sustainability Officer, a brand-new position at Worcestershire Wildlife Trust that has been partially funded by the People's Postcode Lottery.

Although I've been with the Trust for three years, previously as a Natural Networks Officer, I've only recently moved to this role and I'm sure there's going to be lots for me to learn. So that you can learn with me, I plan to do a series of blog posts over the coming year to give details about how we are reducing our carbon and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and making our operations more sustainable.

A distant issue?

Climate change can sometimes seem like a distant issue: we hear about how it is affecting Arctic temperatures, leading to wildfires in distant countries, or how it will affect sea levels in future years. But the climate crisis is at our door and its impacts are already being felt right here in Worcestershire. It's affecting the weather and wildlife all around us: changing the dates at which leaves emerge or flowers go into bloom and disrupting complex relationships between species, leading to extremes in both flooding and drought and increasing the risks posed by invasive species and diseases. The climate crisis and the nature crisis are inextricably linked and need to be solved together: if we want to help protect wildlife, we must reduce our GHG emissions, and if we want to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate we will need nature's help.

The Wildlife Trusts recognise the significance of the climate crisis and Worcestershire Wildlife Trust's target is to be net zero in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Our sister Wildlife Trusts around the country are undertaking similar work as part of a movement-wide effort.

Our day-to-day work focuses on creating and managing habitats for wildlife but some aspects of what we do can still have a negative impact on the wider environment: we need to use vehicles to get to our reserves and visit partners across the county, we need tools and IT equipment to do our jobs and we need livestock to help manage habitats. All of these things have GHG and wider environmental costs associated with them.

In 2019 the Trust set up the Sustainability Action Group, a group of staff and trustees who were tasked with minimising these environmental costs and making the Trust's operations more sustainable. The group began by collecting data on our emissions from energy usage, travel and livestock emissions. We created a baseline calculation, from which we developed our plan to reach net zero, and we now routinely monitor emissions. We’re taking action to reduce these as well as looking at ways we can help mitigate and adapt to climate change. Stay tuned for more information about this in later blogs.

A greener Christmas