How are we coping?
How is the RHS, and other organisations and companies, coping with changing climate?
Different people face changing climate in different ways. Spence Gunn, a horticultural journalist, is Editor of the Horticultural Development Council’s technical magazine for growers. He surveys the horticultural world to see how individuals and organisations are reducing their impact on the earth’s resources - and what more needs to be done.
Environmental campaigners say that one of the reasons why it is so hard to persuade people in the industrial world to think about our impact on the climate is because we have been isolated from the effects of the changes. One place where we can already see the effects is in gardens and on crops: which is why gardeners and growers are probably more aware than most that change is happening, and think more than most about ways in which we can reduce our contribution to the problem.
Gardening in context
The country’s ‘biggest gardeners’, such as the RHS, the National Trust and the Royal Botanic Gardens, have realised that you cannot think about reducing impacts until you know what they are - so the starting point in many plans is an energy or ‘carbon-footprint’ audit.
You could do the same for domestic gardens, though it is probably harder, as it is not always obvious what causes the biggest footprints. The fuel or electricity that powers your mower is easily measured, but is it more than the energy used to produce and transport the chemical fertilisers and pesticides - both hugely energy intensive - for the vegetable plot?
Unfortunately, the energy involved in using more biologically-friendly pest and disease controls in the garden might not be as little as you would like. As Christopher Bailes, Curator at RHS Garden Rosemoor, who is co-ordinating the RHS efforts to reduce its environmental impacts, points out: ‘In many cases these remedies have to be applied more often, in larger amounts, which could mean that more energy is associated with their manufacture and transport’.
Most gardening organisations have been cutting down on mowing frequency. Unless recharged by renewable-sourced energy, electric machines simply shift the emissions from fuel to elsewhere. ‘The picture is also mixed on biofuels,’ says Christopher. ‘There are significant concerns about their wider social impacts, such as using agricultural land for growing non-food crops.’
Garden Organic researcher Gareth Davies highlights the importance of choosing garden products with the least impact, though his colleague Sally Smith says suppliers are probably not providing enough advice for people to make a truly informed decision. For example, do you need stone paving from India when local, recycled materials are available?
There is nothing new about gardening with minimal environmental impact. Reusing and recycling is second nature to Jack Lamb, holder of a National Plant Collection of Fuchsia species for the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens. He points out that gardeners were composting their green waste long before anyone had heard of global warming.
Composting as much as possible is one of the best ways to cut your carbon footprint, though an environmental audit at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew confirmed that composting produces greenhouse gases, including methane, which is 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide. But the audit also found that this was outweighed by the saving in emissions associated with the energy that would be used to transport and dump the garden waste, together with that used to make and transport the soil conditioner and fertiliser that would be needed in place of the compost.
Looking further afield
It is important to put the impact of gardening and horticulture into perspective. We all have our part to play in making choices that give us as light a footprint as possible. But that should not stop us enjoying our gardens or the fresh fruit, vegetables and garden plants Britain’s growers produce. Low-impact gardening is critically important for wildlife, but it may have less impact on our overall carbon footprints than we hope.
A study for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs shows that British agriculture and horticulture is responsible for around 1.19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year - compare that to the 4 million tonnes caused by domestic appliances left on standby, according to the Energy Saving Trust. Home gardening does not even figure on the Government’s carbon calculator - it is more interested in double glazing and central heating. Domestic gardens probably account for less than 0.3m tonnes of annual carbon dioxide emissions.