On today’s (Wednesday 5 June) World Environment Day, we look back at some of the Eco-Committee's highlights and schemes that addressed many aspects of climate and nature over the year. And while the year may be drawing to a close, the work nonetheless continues as members of the committee were at work today conducting water sampling tests ahead of this weekend's Great UK WaterBlitz!
In November, members of our Eco-Committee attended an event hosted by Greener Henley, which aimed to bring primary, secondary, and further education students and teachers together to begin thinking about their schools' climate action plans. Speaking at the time, Vice Chair of the Eco-Committee, Charlie Scott in Year 10, said:
'It was important for Shiplake to go to this because it shows that we are leading the way in how schools can take action to fight the dual-climate crisis (biodiversity and climate change).’
In December, to coincide with COP28, the committee set pupils and staff the challenge to ‘go veggie’ at lunchtime. Later, in January for Veganuary, they did the same with the goal to promote the idea of eating less meat as well as why this is important for tackling climate change. Agriculture is one of the biggest causes of global greenhouse gas emissions where approximately 20-25% of all greenhouse gas emissions.1kg of beef creates 60kg of carbon and if everyone ate 20% less beef, rates of deforestation would halve by 2050. Ultimately, one meal a week with no meat and no cheese is the equivalent of taking one car off the road for five weeks!
In April, following delivery of 420 trees, members of the Eco-Committee as well as other pupils from across the College took the time to plant them on our new sports pitches. As the College continues to expand and develop, one such area that we are keen to focus on is biodiversity and our commitment to the environment. Speaking at the time of planting, the Eco-Committee said:
‘We did not just plant trees, but also a future for everyone to reflect on for decades to come. This is important because as a school, we believe that we should be aiming to increase carbon capture and increase biodiversity to support local species around our site.’
Other projects and initiatives have included planting wildflower seeds and marking World Bee Day. With the former, the committee wanted to acknowledge the day because of the important role bees play in providing the food we need. Humans cannot survive without them as without their vital pollination, we would have up to 70% less food!
And, ahead of this year’s Great UK WaterBlitz over the weekend of 7-10 June, the Eco-Committee conducted water sampling tests to measure the water quality of the College’s stretch of the River Thames. The aim for this is to help build a national picture of water quality across the UK as with this data, real change can be fought for!
Co-ordinator of the Eco-Committee, Mr Burrows, says:
‘It’s not just World Environment Day we care about here at Shiplake; we care about the environment every day. Our overall aim for the Eco-Committee is to reduce the College’s carbon footprint and increase biodiversity and this year, we have been focussing on raising awareness and putting the Eco-Committee on the map and I think we have done that.
Everyone at the College has a much greater awareness of who we are and what we do as a committee, in addition to some of the projects that we are aiming to do in the future. Next year, it will be good to build on this and hopefully have a greater impact. Of course, we would like to keep on raising awareness, but we would also like to take larger, more proactive steps.
My highlights from the year include the vegetarian and vegan days which were definitely successful in putting us in the spotlight, but I also enjoyed forming new partnerships such as what we did with Greener Henley. We have both supported them and gotten support from them in working towards the College’s Climate and Nature Action Plan which is a government policy that schools will need to have by 2025. Greener Henley are helping us with that, and we are also helping them!’
