Bringing back nature
A series of £10k investments to re-wild and diversify nature in our local communities
How our 10 tonne challenge winners have invested their £10,000 grants in biodiversity projects in the local community...
For more information contact:
This year (2024), each winner of our 10 Tonne Carbon Challenge received a Morgan Sindall grant of £10,000, to reinvest in a biodiversity project in it's local community.
But what is the 10 Tonne Carbon challenge?
Well, the challenge empowers our project teams, for a focused week, to work with our consultants and supply chain and find intelligent solutions that reduce carbon from the buildings we deliver, by a minimum of 10 tonnes.
The teams are able to use CarboniCa, our intelligent carbon reduction tool, top help model and calculate the impact of changes they decide to make to methods or materials on each scheme.
Click on the video below to learn more about CarboniCa
The challenge launched in 2021, and ever since then, we have held the challenge four times a year, with this year being the first to award prizes.
The winning project in each area of our business secured a company grant of £10,000 to spend on a biodiversity or nature based project locally, in partnership with Groundwork UK.
To protect the iconic wildlife we all love, we must rebuild the web of biodiversity that supports it.
Biodiversity is all the different kinds of life you’ll find in one area - the variety of animals, plants, fungi, and even microorganisms like bacteria that make up our natural world. Each of these species and organisms work together in ecosystems, like an intricate web, to maintain balance and support life. Biodiversity supports everything in nature that we need to survive: food, clean water, medicine, and shelter.
But as humans put increasing pressure on the planet, using and consuming more resources than ever before, we risk upsetting the balance of ecosystems and losing biodiversity. WWF’s 2024 Living Planet Report found an average 73% decline in global populations of mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians since 1970. The 2019 landmark Global Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services reported 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction—the highest number in human history.
Our Unity Campus project team won the Cambridgeshire £10k grant, by saving 1,059tCO2e through by changing from SFS to SIPS, using GGBS in the concrete mix and omitting raised access floors.
After winning the 10 Tonne Challenge for Cambridgeshire, the Unity Campus team opted to invest the £10k in revitalising the patient gardens at Arthur Rank Hospice - the businesses local charity of the year. A week long event saw 189 volunteer hours donated in revitalising the gardens.
It's amazing because normally we're just maintaining, but with your volunteers coming in we can commit to some projects. You'be brought a lot of people, over quite a few days that really assists our own volunteers!
Our Eversley Leisure Centre project team won the Essex £10k grant, by saving 410tCO2e through redesigning the pool foundations using a new technique called shotcrete and using HVO fuel on site.
After winning the challengex, the Eversley team invested the £10k in working in partnership with Basildon Council and Groundworks UK, to create a vast wilflower meadow area at Northlands Park in Basildon, donating 68 volunteer hours to complete the scheme.
Wildflower meadows are the ground zero of the food chain and a lifeline for our parks, countryside, and planet. They boost biodiversity, keep our soil healthy, and help lock in carbon. Their flowers and grasses fuel bees, butterflies, and beetles, which then feed everything from birds to hedgehogs and more. Projects like the wildflower meadow at Northlands Park in Basildon are crucial to bringing these vital ecosystems back to life.
In February 2023, Morgan Sindall Group created a long term partnership with the RSPB at Lakenheath by purchasing 54 hectares of neighbouring farmland to add to this vital nature reserve.
The RSPB has acquired the site to restore its wetlands and incorporate them into the conservation charity's Lakenheath Fen reserve, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border.
🦅 Extends habitat for threatened species of bird like Booming Bittern🌍 Saves 1,782 tons CO2 annually (the same as emissions from 660 UK homes!)🍃 Increases biodiversity net gain📸 Boosts tourism for the region by people visting❤️ Enhances health and wellbeing through more walking routes
