Compton Verney is managed to balance the artistic integrity of landscape design with an appreciation for nature and wildlife.  Initiatives to increase biodiversity have included the creation of eighty acres of wildflower meadow, planting trees to create wooded pasture, planting native hedgerows, and sensitive woodland management.  This work has enabled rich wildlife populations to thrive.  The park has been designated a Local Wildlife Site. Local populations of birds and moths have been surveyed and documented by volunteer experts. 

The park plays host to activities which bring visitors closer to nature, such as Forest School, and bird, butterfly and tree walks.  Workshops including Pigment Making and Woodcraft build hand skills as an alternative to consumption of mass-produced products with heavier carbon footprints; activities such as Thai Chi on the lawn also have a low environmental cost and nurture connection with landscape.

From its inception, Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park has been pro-active in working to keep its footprint light, for instance incorporating a lake source heat pump in the 1990’s restoration work.  In 2015, a reed bed for the treatment of sewage was installed within the park.  Care for the environment has been present in resource management decisions.  Examples are: choosing a waste partner with a zero to landfill policy; choosing a low carbon energy supply; the current shift to electric garden machinery; and the plan to manage the park organically by 2020.  Steps have been taken to reduce energy consumption, for instance by fitting LED lighting in the galleries.  As an NPO, we monitor our use of resources (see Appendix One).  The recent installation of electric car charging points and planned installation of bicycle racks is helping to lower the impact of visitor travel.

Compton Verney teams with partner organisations to improve sustainability – it is a member of Sustainability of Arts in West Midlands, working together with organisations including the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Midlands Arts Centre.

Compton Verney’s curation, both inside and out, continues to reflect the landscape.  Past exhibitions have included Whistler and Nature, The Lost Words, Creating the Countryside and Gainsborough’s Landscapes.  Self-sufficiency and taming of the landscape have been explored, for instance in The Fifties Allotment, Stanley Spencer and the English Garden, and Capability Brown and the Landscapes of Middle England.  Sustainability has been addressed on a practical level, for instance in The Clearing – an experiment in simple, off-grid living within the park.

We are a forward thinking, environmentally-aware organisation that fulfils our social responsibility and promotes an environmentally-friendly culture, striving for continuous improvement in areas of environmental interest. 
As a young organisation, we wish to reveal and share our environmental journey with our governors, staff, members and visitors, and to build on it by embedding best practice through the development of a sustainability framework.  This will cover the four broad areas described below.

Through environmental action we aim to:
·         Respond to the climate emergency recognised by the UK Parliament, Stratford District Council and others and enhance our reputation by sharing a strong environmental narrative
·         Provide opportunities for our visitors, young and old, to engage with, learn about and enjoy wildlife and landscape
·         Manage costs in order to strengthen financial resilience and re-invest into our work as a not-for-profit charity
·         Enhance reputation by sharing a strong environmental narrative, as awareness of the climate change and biodiversity crisis intensifies
·         Meet or exceed all of the requirements of relevant environmental legislation and best practice
·         Consider our impact by collecting data to demonstrate this
·         Quantifying and monitoring benchmarking whilst responding and reducing accordingly

We plan to develop, articulate and communicate a clear vision for a shared ethos within our community, which includes eighty-five staff and over one hundred volunteers.  This will include increasing awareness of energy usage, environmental risks, procedures and best practice through training and articles within internal publications.  Measures to increase engagement, such as transparency of our environmental metrics through a physical display, will be considered by a newly-formed Green Committee.

We will ensure all of our plant and infrastructure is regularly maintained and serviced allowing it to perform at its most efficient.  We will continue to take the environment into account when replacing plant and infrastructure as we have done previously with our lake sourced heat pump and reed bed.  We will look carefully at the impact of our park and art gallery on the environment, and how this can be improved.  For instance, we will explore opportunities for further generation of renewable energy and carbon drawdown on site.  We will also look at setting a date for achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
We would like to consider a project to extend our biodiversity surveying work to include more flora and fauna.

We plan to tell the story of our environmental work to our visitors, putting our landscape and projects in context, perhaps through the creation of an Environment Centre.  We also plan to minimise visitor footprint, e.g. by eliminating disposables in the café.  In addition, we would like to provide a safe, creative space to allow artists and visitors to explore their responses to environmental challenges, and to engage in dialogue.  We envisage working with diverse artists using a co-production model.

We plan to develop clear protocols for selecting and working with suppliers, funders and contractors, for instance in relation to transportation of artwork.  We would like to have a clear awareness of our organisations’ embodied emissions, i.e. the footprint of our supply chain.  We will continue to work collaboratively with other relevant organisations, sharing our performance and experience with transparency.

Our schedule for environmental work includes the following regular tasks:
1.      Review the Environmental Policy (this document)
2.      Review the Environmental Action Plan
3.      Convene a Green Committee to meet at least quarterly in order to review and appraise environmental performance and evolve future plans
4.      Audit and review to ensure compliance to the policy and to any applicable laws and legislation
5.      Ensure all plant and infrastructure is regularly maintained and serviced allowing it to perform at its most efficient