Environmental Sustainability
As a charity we have a mission to preserve, protect and improve the Compton Verney buildings, landscape and natural environment for the benefit of our visitors.
Environmental sustainability is a key focus of our work and critical to our mission, we connect people to the wildlife around us.
In July 2019, our local authority declared a climate emergency and councillors pledged to take local action with an aim of carbon neutrality in Stratford-on-Avon district by 2030. We all play a part in acheiving this aim.

The story so far….
These initiatives include
The creation of an eighty acre wildlife meadow.
Planting trees to create a wooded pasture and hedgerows and developing sensitive woodland management practices. Local populations of birds and moths have been surveyed and documented by volunteer experts.
An ongoing programme of activities and activities for our visitors promote a connection to nature and develop skills for protecting widllife.
A source heat pump was installed in the lake in the 1990s.
A reed bed for treatment of sewage was installed in 2015.
Our waste parther has a ‘zero to landfill policy.
We have a low carbon energy supply.
We are sourcing electric garden machinery.
We manage the park organically.
Reducing energy consumption through fitting LED lighting.
Installing electric car charging points and bicycle racks to reduce the impact of visitor travel.
We are a member of Sustainability of Arts in the West Midlands and continue to monitor our use of resources as part of our Arts Council NPO requirements. (See Appendix One).
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.
Environmental Strategy
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.
Motivation, Aims and Objectives
· 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
· Share 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
Workplace Culture
Infrastructure
We would like to consider a project to extend our biodiversity surveying work to include more flora and fauna.
Audiences
Partners
Regular Tasks and Reviews
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