Coventry Climate Change Board - Learn how to protect Coventry & Warwickshire’s biodiversity - Video and audio transcripts

[00:00:18.720] - John Bates (Podcast Chair)

Hello. Welcome to the Green Business Programme Podcast. The nature all around us is precious and benefits from a helping hand. In this podcast we're joined by Middlemarch Environmental, a UK wide wildlife trust consultancy, and we're going to talk about what local businesses can do to protect the nature in Coventry and Warwickshire. I'm John Bates and our guest is James Callow, Senior Ecologist at Middlemarch Environmental and he's on the line now. Hi, James, thanks very much for being a guest on the podcast.

[00:00:51.940] - James Callow

Hi, John. It's a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me to speak with you.

[00:00:55.840] - John Bates

No problem. Just give us a bit of an overview, if you would, about Middlemarch and what the history is and what it is that you're doing.

[00:01:03.570] - James Callow

Yes. Basically, Middlemarch is a wholly owned subsidiary of Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. Warwickshire Wildlife Trust is a charity that promotes nature conservation within Warwickshire and it was set up back in the seventies. People might know it's headquarters, it's based in Brandon Marsh, just outside Coventry. It's a big wetland nature reserve complex that they've got there. And one of the interesting things about Brandon Marsh is that it's actually a former sand and gravel extraction work. So, it was actually owned by a business which then, when they moved away from sand and gravel extraction, has actually filled up with water and created a fantastic wetland nature reserve. So, it's a very good example of how businesses can help biodiversity and Brandon Marsh is a special site of scientific interest. Where Middle March fits into that is that we are the consultancy arm of the charity. So we were set up in the early 90s, about 1991 basically, just as a group, to help provide a bit of income for the Trust to give them a bit of extra money that they could spend on local nature conservation projects.

[00:02:22.920] - James Callow

Now from the 90’ to around now the business has grown quite substantially, so it's gone from, as I say, just a small group of people that were based at Brandon to an independent company. We're a registered company. We've got our own office in Meriden now and we're a medium sized organisation. We employ over 100 people and have a turnover of about £5 million. So 10% of that turnover every year goes to the Trust to support nature conservation projects. So we give them about half a million pounds a year, which for a local conservation charity is quite a significant sum of money. So, yeah, it's a real local success story for nature conservation, for us and the Trust.

[00:03:05.760] - John Bates

Great efforts and a great story. Now, you're a Senior Ecologist and presumably that's more than just a feature of age.

[00:03:15.410] - James Callow

Yes, it is, yeah. It's a good question. What do I actually do? And I think the key thing is, as a trust, we look at two things really. We look at supporting businesses and other organisations in terms of what they've got on their land holding, so what kind of habitats they've got, whether it be kind of grassland areas, woodland areas, ponds and wetlands and things like that. Because a lot of companies say if you think about people that generate power, like the utilities and companies like that, or even landfill sites or other businesses, they generally tend to have a bit of a land holding where they've got some grassland or maybe some trees or hedge rows or a pond or something like that that can actually be managed for wildlife and conservation. So, we do a lot of work in terms of surveying the habitats, seeing what they've got, facilitating development if they need to develop it. So, look at what they need to do to manage that effectively and build biodiversity back into the soft landscaping scheme.

[00:04:27.120] - John Bates

Sorry to interrupt. You say lots of projects and just sort of reading on your website and you're talking about that you're delivering sort of 300 ecological and biodiversity projects nationwide. I mean, it's an extraordinary undertaking, isn't it?

[00:04:41.350] - James Callow

It is, yeah. That's it. Well, that's, again, part of the success and the growth of the organisation. So not only the habitat works, but we also do a lot of protected species surveys as well. So, like I said, we do badges, bats, reptile surveys, all of those sorts of things. And yeah, that's not just within Warwickshire. We can undertake that sort of work all over the country. So, again, we've grown from a small group of people just doing things within Warwickshire to yes, a UK wide organisation now, which is fantastic. And like you say, again, we work with a private individual that wants to convert their loft space and might have potentially bats in there, and we can go and do a bat survey right through to national infrastructure projects. So things like the A 14 development and things like that, we worked on that in terms of moving water bolts and looking for reptiles and trappings, transporting those so that the road could go through effectively.

[00:05:39.910] - John Bates

Okay, so roads and rail, obviously, HS2 is a big issue. So what's going on in Warwickshire? So let's just talk about Coventry in Warwickshire, just for a moment. And what's the situation with regards to biodiversity in Coventry and Warwickshire?

[00:05:55.200] - James Callow

Yes, I think from our point of view, it's fair to say that the trust is looking after its nature reserve sites and trying to protect and manage the best of the habitats that they've got. But there's also a lot more that could be done particularly, and that's why we're really interested in working with local businesses and people like that. Because it's not just kind of the flagship nature reserve sites that need to be looked after and managed, it's all of those little parcels of land and those stepping stones between those big reservoirs of biodiversity that we need to look at as well. And what the Trust is promoting now is this kind of idea of living landscape. So, yeah, all of these little interconnected parcels of green space and things like that to act as corridors and stepping stones for wildlife, and the more that you can boost the biodiversity value of those and make them attractive spaces for lots of different species to be able to live and move about in there.

[00:06:57.060] - John Bates

And would you say that public interest increased in the last decade?

[00:07:02.650] - James Callow

Definitely. I mean, I think you only have to look at the membership numbers for things like the wildlife Trusts nearly up to a million members. I mean, if you look at our kind of sister organisation, the RSPB, which deals entirely with the protection of birds, then they're well over a million members now as well. So you can see that's just two organisations that have a membership of over a million people. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, really. There's lots of other nature conservation organisations and species specific organisations that have that. Generally, if you talk to people as well, we meet a lot of people out and about on site, and most people are quite interested in what we're doing and they tend to like nature and appreciate wildlife and are interested in what we're doing. So, yeah, I think there very much is with most people that we've come across a real interest and a passion to look after wildlife. I think that's why TV shows at the moment as well, you can look at things like Spring Watch and Autumn Watch very, very popular and have a lot of viewing figures and keep being recommissioned year on year.

[00:08:19.630] - James Callow

And I think that's because, again, lots of people are interested in wildlife.

[00:08:24.700] - John Bates

Local businesses listening to this then might want to jump on board, do their bit. What can they do? What simple steps?

[00:08:31.690] - James Callow

I think, as I say, most people think that they can't really do anything because they just think, oh, well, it's not like a nature reserve site, it's not dedicated for conservation, things like that. But even doing something fairly simple like just taking the land that you've got and having a think about whether you can plant native plants that are attractive to pollinators, so things that attract kind of insects like bees and butterflies, again, we've seen quite a big decrease in pollinator species nationally and locally. You've probably seen the articles in the news and things like that. And again, just doing something small to help support those species, even if it's just a little bit of planting here and there, putting in some native wildlife, attracting plant species, that can make a big difference. There's things that you can help to support wildlife. I mean, again, the obvious ones are you could put like an invertebrate box in, which is just kind of a small set of canes, which kind of solitary bees and things like that connecting. And it's again attracted to ladybirds and other sorts of things. And it just helps. And there's the standard things about putting kind of bat boxes up where you can bird boxes and other things to help provide roosting spaces, to provide extra nesting spaces.

[00:09:48.570] - James Callow

If they've got possibly the opportunity, they could put in something like a pond, which is quite attractive as a feature within the company boundary, but it also provides a fantastic wetland habitat to attract species like amphibians. It's great for invertebrates, it helps with aquatic macro invertebrates, it attracts frogs, toads, newts and all those sorts of things as well.

[00:10:12.280] - John Bates

For a business owner, are there any sort of considerations, any planning issues or any pieces of legislation that folks need to be aware of?

[00:10:21.640] - James Callow

Not so much from a planning point of view, if they've got a patch of land, they're pretty flexible in terms of the way that they can manage it. And as I say, we would actively encourage them to manage it as much as they can for nature conservation, whilst also balancing what they need, you know, amenity wise from a business point of view as well. I think the only issue would be from a planning and legal point of view, is if there were certain things that they attracted to the site, such if they had, like, birds nesting. Obviously you can't disturb the nest while the birds are nesting and things like that. But generally, if these things are kind of tucked away in an area of non operational land, there's just kind of an additional space that isn't going to be required for future development. And again, if you put your bird box up and it's out of the way and isn't really affecting anything in terms of the day to day activities of the site, then they can coexist quite amicably without any sort of issue for the companies.

[00:11:30.060] - James Callow

I think what we find is that the main issue in terms of kind of wilding sites and things like that, is that people get a bit twitchy about it looking neat and tidy. You know, quite a lot of Senior Business Managers like their grass to look like Wembley Stadium and have it all nice and neat moan and everything like that. Whereas obviously, for wildlife, you want to make it grow a bit longer, get some flowering plants in there and things like that. But as I say, it's about taking little steps, so maybe, you know, it's not the whole area that you want to dedicate to that and make it look like a meadow. You can have, like, a small parcel of land that's out of the way and still have a bit of amenity space. So it's about creating a balance, I think.

[00:12:11.310] - John Bates

Yeah, I can certainly understand that. The concept of “No Mow May” is something that some people would have a hard time with other than the feel good fact, because quite clearly there's a lot of there's a nice thing about some of the things that you're talking about. From a business point of view, though, what's in it for them? Is there anything else other than just the feel good factor?

[00:12:34.650] - James Callow

I think with wildlife and conservation, what a lot of companies tend to do nowadays, and what we've found, and something that we've had to do ourselves, is that when you're tendering for contracts and things like that, the quality part of the submission, as well as kind of the numbers, is actually quite important. And they're looking at what systems have you got in place, have you got an environmental management system, have you got health and safety management system, quality system and things like that. If you have got some sort of environmental management system, then having something on your land holdings and trying to attract species through species features and things like that is actually a very visible demonstration of your environmental performance and your environmental credentials. And it's something that you can sell as a bit of a success story as well. So if you do create a pond, or if you have put bird boxes up and they've attracted species that are coming in and nesting, then that's a nice story, both to the staff and also that you can promote something a bit more widely as well, in terms of making it like a good newsletter and a good news story.

[00:13:42.930] – John Bates

It's sort of broadening the social responsibility into the environmental issues.

[00:13:48.570] - James Callow

Yes, very much so. And like you say, because a lot of people like, as we've discussed previously, wildlife and conservation, and they're quite interested when you get birds nesting and when you get your frogs and toads, the frogs born and toads born and things like that in the early months, it's quite a nice story to have. And it's something that people buy into quite readily when they see that. And as I say, it's more than anything else, more than kind of managing your waste and your water and all of those sorts of things, it's a very visible, emblematic demonstration of your environmental credentials, much more so than kind of hard numbers or anything like that.

[00:14:31.150] - John Bates

Let's just talk about Middlemarch and your involvement with the Green Business Programme, because you've worked to sort of improve the energy efficiency for business premises. So tell us a little bit more about that and the improvements that you’ve made.

[00:14:46.210] - James Callow

Yeah, basically we wanted to get our own house in order. It's very good as preaching to people about yes, you need to look after wildlife and nature conservation. But also, from our point of view, we wanted or we have ISO 14,001 Environmental Management System and as well as kind of doing the wildlife stuff, we need to get our own house in order in terms of managing our own waste and our energy consumption, water consumption and things like that. And one of the opportunities that came along was, yes, to work with the Green Business programme, basically, and have a free audit of our energy consumption within the building. So we're based kind of in a bit of a 1960s, stroke 70s office block, the edge of Coventry in Millison's Wood. So, yeah, one of your colleagues called Bernadette helped us out massively by coming along, having a look at what we got in terms of lighting and our heating and the way that the water was being heated on site and basically the insulation in the buildings and the window and everything like that. And kind of worked out where we could enhance and tweak our performance to save energy, but also reduce our carbon footprint as well, which is really, you know, it's important for us as a business.

[00:16:09.780] - James Callow

It's one of the indicators of our performance as a business, our carbon footprint. So, as I say, it was great that that was provided as a free service, because it's free consultancy, which would have cost us a significant amount of money if we'd gone out to another company to ask them to come in to do that audit for us. The other great benefit of the scheme as well is that it identified a number of grant opportunities that gave us a significant proportion of the funding. So some of the improvements that they identified, like changing all of our old fashioned strip lighting to LED lighting to reduce energy consumption, save carbon, and also changing. So we've got these old convector heaters in the office, which, as I say, we'll probably put in when the building first created. Not very energy efficient at all, because they're a product of the 70s, changing them over to new energy efficient heaters were two kind of massive savings that we could and something that we were looking at anyway, because the electricity bills were costing us a lot of money.

[00:17:21.210] - John Bates

And you give us some sort of sense, then you're talking about carbon footprint and obviously being able to save money. Can you contextualise that a little bit? Can you give us some numbers?

[00:17:33.190] - James Callow

Yes, I dug out the audit report, so basically, one of the opportunities that they identified was to replace all of the light fittings with LED alternatives. So the cost of that was about six and a half thousand pounds to change all of the lighting over in the building. But you have to remember that through having the audit, they identified an opportunity to provide 40% funding for that through the grants that they got there, which, again, is fantastic. Nearly half of it funded through grant applications. The cost saving of putting that in was £2700 a year on our electricity. Yeah, indeed. So it literally pays for itself within a couple of years.

[00:18:28.600] - John Bates

I can understand why Bernardette from the Green Business Programme is your new best friend.

[00:18:33.760] - James Callow

She is, yeah, absolutely great. She's my Managing Director's new best friend as well. They love everything that saves on the bottom line. So, yeah, as I say, we're into profit after two years and it also saves us over three and a half tonnes of carbon per year as well, which is a significant chunk of our carbon footprint. So, as you say, our managing directors delighted. Our external auditors for ISO 14001, the Environmental Management System, are absolutely delighted as well. They think it's a great scheme and they're credited us and the Green Business Scheme on that. So, yeah, that's LRQA are well established auditor. So for them to say that that's been a really good opportunity for improvement for us, a really good scheme, it's a great endorsement of the scheme that you've got.

[00:19:30.720] - John Bates

Yes, absolutely brilliant. Right, so now, just to help our listeners that want to sort of embark upon a biodiversity type programme, want to try and do their best for nature in their properties around Coventry and Warwickshire, let's go for the million dollar questions. Let's ask the man in the top seat here. What are your top tips? Three top tips. Can we do three top tips?

[00:19:56.680] - James Callow

Yeah, of course we can. Yeah. So I think going back to what we said before about living landscapes and little stepping stones that help kind of nature move and providing little habitats for nature, I think obviously a lot of people, both in businesses and personally, would have a land holding on their business. They'd have a garden area. So I think any opportunities that you can take to make your garden as wildlife friendly as possible, both your land holdings at work and also your personal garden at home. So, yes, it might be putting up bird feeders or putting out insect boxes or bird boxes or a bat box or something like that. Maybe you can, as I say, create a little pond space or something. I think that it makes a fantastic difference to nature if they've got all of these little pockets that they can explore and utilise and just helps that whole concept of the wildlife I was talking about in terms of living landscapes, it really helped to provide those stepping stones and platforms, green spaces. I think the other thing that I would say as well that links into that so kind of planting your plants, making it nice for pollinators, putting a pond in, is this idea of species features.

[00:21:06.660] - James Callow

So, yeah, if you do have the opportunity, you can buy something quite cheaply in terms of wooden bird box or a bat box or something like that, and it's just a case of kind of screwing it to your outside wall and they'll come along and find it and utilise that game. If you can put like, an insect box in, it's quite cheap. It's only a wooden box with a set of canes in there. But again, ladybirds and lace wings can use it. Solitary bees can use it and it's great for pollinators. It gives them some additional space that they can utilise for their life cycles and things like that. So it's only kind of small, relatively cheap things, but it makes a massive difference to wildlife and provides them with all of those little niches that they need to utilise for their life cycle. It's really, really good and probably the last thing. As a Wildlife Trust person, I would say if you are interested in nature conservation and making a difference, then please join your local wildlife trust. So, yeah, again, membership of the trust is a great thing. They'll produce newsletters and give you a lot more ideas and information about how you can help wildlife locally.

[00:22:12.540] - John Bates

Thanks James, it's lovely to talk to you. Thank you very much for sharing your story.

[00:22:17.560] - James Callow

Absolute pleasure.

[00:22:18.730] - John Bates

That was James Callow from Middlemarch Environmental. Please use the link in the description which accompanies this podcast and let us know if you are interested in accessing the Green Business Programme or becoming a member of the Green Business Network. The network allows businesses to come together, share ideas, promote energy, resource waste and water efficiency, as well as engage on low carbon environmental and green sustainability initiatives. The network is free to join and open to everyone. The Green Business Programme is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund and delivered by Coventry City Council, Coventry University and Coventry University enterprises. This podcast was produced by Maria Covlea. I'm John Bates. Thanks for listening.