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Connection to nature
nature reserves in Studland and an old farm now being managed as a rewilding project.
Nature connection area at Chapel Gate woodlands
A new nature connection area has been created in the woodlands at our Chapel Gate sports site. It has already held several workshops and outdoor learning sessions with students, members of staff and the local community. We aim to further utilise this space in the next academic year, allowing staff to book it for meetings or team-building sessions and to collaborate with SUBU to host sessions in the space that support wellbeing.
Developing our offsetting approach
Local nature-based solutions research
Last year we committed to invest £4,085 in research to help inform our local offsetting approach. The project was completed by BU students under the supervision of BU professor Dr Rick Stafford. It involved site visits to 5 locations across Dorset including BU’s own Chapel Gate Sports campus, a private estate in the Purbeck Heaths,
One of the students, Ellie Jones, entitled her research project ‘Assessing carbon sequestration rates from conservation management: price and potential for multihabitat nature-based carbon sequestration in Dorset.’ She concluded that “although some management options, i.e., woodland creation, bring about large sequestration benefits, high biodiversity habitats, i.e., grasslands and heathland, can bring about both sequestration and biodiversity benefits in tandem. Furthermore, the results show that the cost per additional tonne of carbon sequestered varies considerably between different conservation projects. On average, the cost of this offsetting is higher than traditional methods (i.e., tree planting), however, it is a good option for those wishing to localise their offsetting, and so these additional costs might be acceptable.”
BU is committed to our core approach of reducing our emissions and only offsetting the remainder which can’t be eliminated. We are using this research to inform our approach and explore opportunities for our community to connect with nature whilst offsetting emissions.
To further progress our approach for 2022/23 we will be investing £2,030 in a trial to engage students in tree planting projects identified in the research we carried out this year. This amount has been calculated in recognition of BU exceeding our target for scope 1 emissions by 92.79tCO2e this year and multiplying this by a carbon cost of £21.96/tonne of carbon equivalent.
CECAP actions addressed:
NA1.1, NA1.2, NA1.3, NA1.4, NA1.5, BH2.3, BH1.3, BH1.4, ES1.1