This plan is our commitment to addressing the climate emergency, biodiversity crisis and over-consumption of natural resources
As designers, we need to be fully aware of the deepening climate emergency, biodiversity crisis and depletion of natural resources that is occurring and our part in it, no matter how small that may seem. We have the possibility of creating either negative or positive consequences in the world as a result of our design and material choices. Given the large accumulative area of residential and public gardens in the UK, this large amount of land has the potential to offer the potential to sequester carbon, provide ecosystem services and offer diverse habitats to help reverse the loss in biodiversity. Gardens need to be and can be the solution, not the problem.
In the larger scheme of things, we must understand that we may be beautifying one space (a garden) at the expense of another (the material source). Ultimately, just lessening this impact is not enough and we must strive to create positive outcomes all around (cradle-to cradle, carbon negative etc). However, we also have to begin somewhere and we do that through understanding the impacts that different materials have on the Earth’s ecosystems.
We start with the simple idea (which may nonetheless be challenging of itself, given current trends) to put less structure into a garden, and more planting. Then we choose materials that fulfil our needs with the minimum possible impact.
Read the Plan