Children at nursery participating in bird watching

Submitted by Childbase Partnership

The River View nursery in Hertford is now ‘climate-friendly’ after saving more greenhouse gas emissions than it generates through investments in two UN-certified carbon reduction projects, while reducing its total carbon footprint for the third year in a row.

Celebrating the accomplishment with themed activities to mark World Environment Day, the children and staff of Ofsted’s ‘Outstanding’ Nursery on North Road, Hertford in Hertfordshire planted vegetables and enjoyed sessions of bird watching using handmade binoculars.

River View Nursery Director Tasha Boon explained why the achievement, after more than a decade of striving to achieve best environmental practices, was so important: “We are committed to giving our children the best possible start. in life and that means protecting our natural resources.

“The earth is in crisis, so we knew we had to act and do more while continuing to teach our children to respect and protect the environment.”

Powered by green electricity from renewable sources and sending no waste to landfill, River View Day Nursery holds the Eco-Schools ‘Green Flag’ awarded to schools for their outstanding environmental awareness and conservation . Emissions measurement exercise, by Planet Mark external specialists, to establish an accurate carbon footprint.

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Children participate in sustainable activities all year round, from crafts with natural and recycled materials to show that everything can have a second useful life, to planting and caring for vegetables in the flower beds of the nursery.

River View Day Nursery, which has pledged to achieve net zero emissions by 2030, is part of Childbase’s award-winning partnership with 44 nurseries in England all holding ‘green flag’ eco-schools and with over 2,000 committed owner-staff to better environmental practice.

Currently, Childbase Partnership is financing the distribution of solar water heaters across India and a wind farm in the northern state of Rajasthan, offsetting up to 6,500 tCO2e (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent), which clears effectively its verified carbon footprint of 5,903 tCO2e across all nurseries and creates a “credit” to account for unknowns.

Here, the company plants more than 2,000 trees as part of the Eden reforestation project; by pledging £ 170,000 to complete an LED lighting replacement program in all environments and, in a unique way, launching a sustainable travel challenge to tackle emissions generated by colleagues and parents accessing to nurseries and reduce the remaining largest contributor to its total carbon footprint.