Our Charity is embarking on a mission to support children to take positive action to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. On the United Nations World Environment Day, we launched our brand-new Group Sustainability Strategy which reflects the Day’s principle that ‘we are the generation that can make peace with land’.
We know that children are at the highest risk of experiencing the devasting impacts of climate change. With this sustainability strategy, we set out how we will use our spaces, experiences and voice to support children, through science engagement, to take positive action.
The pledges we are making in the strategy support nature, such as increasing biodiversity at our Winchester Science Centre site, investing in our Charity to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 and influencing behaviour change to reduce the Charity’s indirect environmental impact. But they also support children, such as championing equitable access to science and nature engagement, creating opportunities for children and families to take action with us and together, and to listen to children and stand up for environmental issues that they care about.
Our strategy may be new but our sustainable journey has already begun. We’ve expanded our programmes to include environmental science themes and empowered our teams to implement many small changes in our day-to-day operations to reduce our environmental impact. Last year, we received Gold in the Geen South Downs Sustainability Certification Awards for our efforts to-date. Some successes include reducing our energy consumption by 25%, installing waste stations to help visitors recycle and compost their waste, and working with suppliers to remove single-use plastics.
Ben Ward, Chief Executive of Wonderseekers, said: “We’re on ambitious journey with our sustainability strategy but it’s one we’re excited to be on. Some of our plans are things we’ve already started, like changing behaviours to reduce our impact on the planet, but others will be new for us, such as advocating for the issues children care about. Communication with children, families and partners will be key to measuring our success and we’re looking forward to sharing what we learn. But we can’t do it alone and I’m looking forward to working with our funders, partners and stakeholders to achieve ambitious pledges like reaching carbon neutrality by 2030.”
The launch of our sustainability strategy comes ahead of the unveiling of our masterplan, People and Planet Connected. The masterplan will set out how we intend to deliver on both the organisational and sustainability strategies by 2030. To read our sustainability strategy visit our website.
