Environmental Sustainability - Rotary’s 7th Area of Focus

In June 2020 Rotary International added “Supporting the Environment” as its own area of focus.  The environmental links with the other 6 areas of focus are as follows:
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Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention: Sustainably and equitably managing natural resources to address the root causes of conflict and war to increase peace.
 
Disease Prevention and Treatment: What’s good for the planet is good for us – a healthy environment and access to clean energy helps prevent diseases.
 
Water, sanitation and hygiene: Extreme weather events are on the rise as our earth changes, and better locally directed resource management can reverse desertification, detoxify water, and mitigate against flooding and drought.
​Maternal and child health: Clean air, clean water and sufficient food have a significant impact on the health of mothers and children.
 
Basic education and literacy: Healthy children in peaceful environments have increased social stability and are better able to benefit from education and literacy programmes.
 
Community economic development: Environmental sustainability supports local economies and community development for long term job creation.

Environmental Sustainability Rotarian Action Group (ESRAG) 

​Environmental Sustainability Rotarian Action Group (ESRAG) assists Rotary clubs, districts and multi-districts in planning, implementing and evaluating service projects, building awareness, and inspiring action. These projects promote environmental sustainability, awareness of climate change, and actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to mitigate climate disruption. ESRAG promotes educational resources, initiates dialogue about environmental sustainability, and uses best practices in models and assessments for both projects and daily choices. This work advances the Object of Rotary through positive impacts in all six Areas of Focus.

ESRAG was instrumental in having “Supporting the Environment” as Rotary’s 7th area of focus.

Reducing Plastic Usage

End Plastic Soup: The End Plastic Soup initiative was founded in 2018 by Rotary Clubs in Amsterdam and is now supported worldwide.  The goal is to ban plastic waste from our environment by 2050 through targeted campaigns, awareness raising and alliances with other partners.
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When you hear stats that by 2050 virtually every marine bird species in the world will eat plastic and that 73% of the world’s litter on beaches is plastic waste, we knew as a club we wanted to support this initiative.
The Big Plastic Count: In May 2022, some of our club members signed up to the Big Plastic Count, joining many others counting plastic usage over the period of a week and uploading results to gather new evidence.  The full report highlighted that 88% of our household waste is being burnt, buried and dumped overseas. As a result of the study, Greenpeace launched a petition, which you can sign by clicking here
(www.action.greenpeace.org.uk/plastic-waste-crisis).
River Clean-Up: In May 2022, our club Environmental Leads joined the Rotary district in their Thames Valley Clean Up event. We worked with the other Maidenhead Rotary clubs, who focused on a clean-up on the Saturday – litter picking on the banks between Boulters Lock and the M4 junction.  The sea cadets also helped with cleaning up litter in the river from their boats.

Our club ES leads manned a stall on the High Street to coincide with the clean-up.  We displayed tips on plastic reduction and products from the Filling Good shop in Maidenhead.  We also displayed promotional materials from EPS, leaflets from Wild Maidenhead and encouraged members of the public to sign up to the Big Plastic Count.

Climate Change

Schools Climate Change Poster Competition: In August 2021, our ES leads were judges in a Rotary Climate change poster competition, along with the ES lead for Maidenhead Thames.  There were 11 submissions from 6 schools in RBWM.   There was some amazing talent, with very inspiring posters. The top prize was won with the theme “Human Change not Climate Change”, with an original drawing of an egg timer.  Second prize was “Climate Change – good and bad”.  Third prize was a mind map of “mitigating against climate change”.  There was also a commendation for the simple message ‘Stop climate change, plant trees!’ – it displayed a great image of globe burning on a roasting stick over a fire. The winning entry went direct to the National competition as there is no District competition so it may have ended up being displayed at COP26!
 
Tree Planting at Ockwells Park: In January 2022, 17 Rotarians from Maidenhead Bridge, Maidenhead Thames, Maidenhead Rotaract plus friends and 3 Rotakids, took part in a tree planting event at Ockwells Park. They contributed nearly 50 volunteer hours, and planted approximately 90 of the total goal of 600 trees for that day.  The event was organised by Groundwork South and RBWM council, as part of their initiative to connect 3 areas of Maidenhead to create a wildlife corridor.  

Book and Media Recommendations

Book recommendations:  
Media recommendations:

Talks on Environmental Sustainability

Maria Evans – RBWM Climate Emergency Coalition: “Eat less meat and change to a renewable energy tariff”. These are two things that we can do right now to help tackle the climate emergency, according to Maria Evans, a volunteer with the RBWM Climate Emergency Coalition, who gave our very first environmental talk.

The first half of her talk was very sobering, as we heard how increased burning and cutting down of trees causes release of more CO2.  She outlined the effects that melting ice and rising seas will have on people who are already poor.  Millions of people are currently displaced.  Scarce resources lead to competition and potentially to conflict, creating more refugees. Many animals and plants have become extinct with loss of their habitats. But each of us could make a difference with our actions and behaviour.  Maria suggested lots of changes we can all make, and has given us loads of links about these:

 
Nelly Semaille: Nelly talked to us about the zero waste shop Filling Good in Maidenhead. She first gave us an overview of how much waste is produced in our society at present – not just plastic but also paper.  One way to reduce this is to reuse your own containers. At Filling Good, you can refill your own jars, bottles, reusable bags or whatever container you choose, with everything from muesli and pasta, to dried fruit and mixed herbs.  There are also big containers of cleaning products, and lots of plastic free items like coconut pan scourers. They have bread baked in Maidenhead and locally produced honey, among other food items.  Having a zero waste shop so close to home has reduced the plastic entering our house dramatically -and the ethically produced chocolate is delicious! Find out more click here. (www.fillinggood.co.uk)

Zoe McAvoy – Green Up Our Street: Zoe Macavoy gave an inspiring talk, about the Green Up Our Street initiative. This encourages people to discuss with their neighbours how they, as a community, can make their local area “greener”, as urban green spaces are increasingly being used for other things like housebuilding, and hard standing for parking. Pilot projects in Windsor range from planting a couple of cherry trees to a community orchard!  As well as planting trees, urban greening can include things like wildflower verges, gardens that help to improve biodiversity and bird boxes. There is much more at her website – the resources page has loads of ideas and advice - click here. (www.greenearthplan.org/green-up-our-streets)

Green Walks

We have done some “Green Walks”, trying to focus on local nature and wildlife.
 
Oaken Grove Park: In Oaken Grove Park we saw bat and bird boxes, and wild flowerbeds established in partnership with Wild Maidenhead. One of the large oaks was blown over and this has now become an official log pile for creatures and children. The council have put up many different signs, explaining the wild flowers, long grass areas and hedgerow, the log pile and a nature trail. A local group, Eco@Oaken on Facebook, spearheaded the transformation of the park and surrounding areas to improve it for wildlife. We also visited the Nicholas Winton Memorial Garden.  Nicholas Winton was born on 19 May 1909 and died on 1st July 2015 aged 106. He was known for organising the rescue of 669 Czech children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia during the 9 months before war broke out in 1939. The Garden represents the children's journey to the UK by train and over water. Nicholas Winton was also a member of the Rotary Club of Maidenhead, one of the two other Rotary clubs in the town.
 
Ockwells Park: This local nature reserve is located on Ockwells Road, Maidenhead. Here we saw some of the woodlands which we would later help to connect at the tree planting in January 2022. Although much of Ockwells Park is occupied by sports pitches, the rest is managed to encourage wildlife and has been designated a local nature reserve. The park has a variety of habitats including woodland, open meadow, damp areas and a stream. There is also a nature trail, accessible to wheelchair users. A leaflet describing the trail is available from the Royal Borough.

ECO Action Hub in Maidenhead

The Eco Action Hub opened on 1st April 2023 in the Nicholson Centre.  It hopes to inspire everyone who lives or works in Maidenhead to try to take action to address the climate emergency.  Rotary in Maidenhead is one of several partner organisations.
There is loads of information available, from reducing the carbon footprint of your food, to a large doll’s house with green tips for each individual room.  There is a children’s area, a health and wellbeing section and a corner with tips on more sustainable travelling.  The nature corner even had a tank with tadpoles in it!  You could find suggestions on making your garden more friendly to local wildlife, and guidance sheets on the Wildlife Garden awards.
 
The Library of Things aims to encourage people to share items that they will rarely use/ don’t have storage space for – there was a ukulele on display (which could be borrowed for £3 for a month) when we went! They have sign-up sheets if you have something you could offer, such as a slow cooker for £5 a month (good to try before you spend money on buying one).
 
Regular events will be held - the calendar has included such things as a vacuum cleaner workshop, and a session on the pros and cons of electric vehicles. Upstairs there will be regular Repair Cafes – the sheer range of things being worked on during the opening day was amazing!  There is also room for partners like Rotary to run events there.
 
The hub is at 5/7 Nicholson Centre (two shops to the left of Card Factory) and will be open from 10.30 till 4.30 pm on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.  It is well worth a visit – in fact I will need to go several times just to take in the huge amount of information that was on offer!
So if you ever wondered if you could really make a difference...join Rotary and you can!

We Would Love to meet You Soon!

We meet on the 1st and 3rd Sunday at 10.30am at The Devonshire Suite, Magpies football stadium (Maidenhead United), York Road

Telephone

07876 341334

Email

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