On Earth Day 2021 our company secretary, Geraldine, takes time to reflect on how the nursery reduces it's impact on the environment:
In 2019 Leeds declared a Climate Emergency and a citizen's jury made recommendations on where to start in making changes. As a longstanding community venue we are mindful that the way that we approach transport, energy, food and the things we choose to buy all have an impact on our environment.
Our nursery is now located in an Active Travel Neighbourhood, with planters placed at one end of our street aiming to reduce the amount of traffic locally and air pollution generally. Over recent years we have aimed to minimise the impact of our nursery on our environment by making use of natural light and installing solar panels to supply our electricity. We aim to shop locally, shop in bulk and employ local people where possible which will reduce unnecessary travel. We have also explored increasing our local green space, taking over some unused land with support from Wades Charity and growing our own food in our community orchard.
As we start a new year we are looking into sustainable ways to replace our existing boiler to reduce our energy use and work towards becoming carbon neutral. We love being able to create culturally diverse meals but have met with School Plates to explore how our menu can be improved with more plant-based options. We continue to explore how we can best protect our environment from reducing our waste: refilling and reusing containers with our local Refill Station and joining the B&Q Community Reuse scheme.
We are working with local environmental not-for-profits Seagulls Paint and Hyde Park Source reusing and repurposing materials in updating our indoors and outdoors facilities. We are also taking advice from our waste removal team on how we can recycle more of our waste.
We know that many community members are looking for ways to support each other and reduce waste such as the spontaneous food swap created by our families in our reception! In the same spirit, we have arranged to meet The Real Junk Food Project to see if we can be a hub to distribute vegan food boxes and we are hoping to set up an end-of-term School Uniform Exchange with support offered by Zero Waste Leeds. Our local councillors have supported us to work with a local parent to create our own 'little library,' sharing books and community resources and we continue to redecorate and equip our community room to be a space to continue this conversation. We hope you share our ambitions and welcome your support and ideas to achieve and build on what we have described, playing our part in creating a better future for our children.
