Nature Positive is a term that refers to the reversing of nature loss and encourages ecosystem recovery. The Nature Positive Universities network is comprised of over 500 higher educational institutions worldwide who have all committed to protecting biodiversity by signing the Nature Positive Pledge. The network was jointly founded by the University of Oxford and the UN Environment Programme in December 2022. If you’re interested in finding out more about Nature Positive and how as a student you can get involved, keep reading!
Image: The aim of the Nature Positive Universities group; reversing the biodiversity loss curve. Credit: Nature Positive Universities.
What is the student ambassador programme?
If you are a student and interested in the Nature Positive ethos, check out the Student Ambassador Programme. Every year, Nature Positive Universities welcome students to apply for this program, giving them the opportunity to play a part in #GenerationRestoration while collaborating with students from other universities on a global scale.
The programme is an exciting blend of practical and collaborative activities, with no two days being the same!
Some benefits you will gain upon joining the programme:
Experience volunteering with mentors at University of Oxford
A chance to make a difference on our campus
Networking with a global community of environmental activists
Resources and training to help you organise events and activities
A certificate documenting your role
A chance to exercise your personal skills such as social media, communications, design, organising events, translation and biological identification and survey techniques
Image: Nature Positive student ambassadors volunteering in a field. Credit: Nature Positive Universities.
How can I apply?
Applying for the programme only takes 10 minutes and could seriously boost your CV, if you are interested in working within the environmental or urban planning sector.
Sign-ups for the 2024/2025 Nature Positive Student Ambassador Programme are currently open and the deadline to apply is the 10th November 2024.
To find out more on what the sustainable campus team are doing to fulfil the Nature Positive Pledge, check out our blog post on Biodiversity Net Gain, or visit the Biodiversity page on our website!
As works progress on redeveloping the University’s vast Castle Leazes student accommodation, sustainability is being considered at every step. Examples of this work include plans for Biodiversity Net Gain on the site and the decision to deconstruct the halls rather than demolishing them to reuse and recycle as many of the buildings’ materials as possible. Amongst these efforts, the Accommodation Team has been doing some incredible work to ensure that the hall’s furnishings are being sustainably reused rather than thrown away.
Image: A visual of the redevelopment of Castle Leazes student accommodation. The project will preserve existing habitats where possible and create further new ones to ensure that the site achieves a biodiversity net gain. Credit: Newcastle University.
A sustainable Legacy
Castle Leazes Halls is one of the University’s largest and oldest halls of residence, with over 1000 student bedrooms across the site, and so the volume of furniture that needed to be reused was enormous. This prohibited colleagues’ usual route of reusing items within the University due to a simple lack of sufficient demand, so colleagues in Accommodation worked hard to organise a mass donation of items to other organisations across the region. Utilising the City of Sanctuary network, a variety of charitable, public, and non-profit organisations were invited to pick out what they needed from the accommodation’s stock, resulting in thousands of items being reused.
Included in this list of benefitting organisations were schools, The People’s Kitchen, and even the City Library. Additionally, Urban Green also attended the site to accept donations of hundreds of pounds worth of plants which will now be replanted in parks throughout the city. The teams that came out to collect items were hugely appreciative of the donations and many left messages of gratitude for our wonderful accommodation colleagues:
“I just wanted to say thank you for all your help and donations, it is really appreciated and our schools in the NEAT Academy Trust will really benefit from what we have collected over the last few days.”
“The People’s Kitchen are massively appreciative for everything. We’ll send you through an update of what we’ve managed to do with the equipment but we’re very excited about the difference it’s going to make.”
“On behalf of the Cadets of Northumbria ACF, I would like to thank you and your team for all the fantastic furniture for our new Cadet Rest Area. I was in Otterburn during its first use at the weekend and I can tell you, the Cadets absolutely loved it. This is the first time in the history of NACF that they have had a proper kitted out rest area where they can truly relax, so it is amazing for them.”
Image: Chairs, tables, and other items from Castle Leazes are pictured in situ in their new home. Credit: Northumbria Army Cadets.Image: Sofas and bean bags from Castle Leazes are pictured in situ in their new home. Credit: St Paul’s Church of England Primary School.
A massive thank you to Helen Davis and the entire Accommodation Team for their hard work organising this amazing donation project. In addition to the dedication of the teams involved, this work highlights the incredible co-benefits that sustainability and the circular economy can bring to projects and communities.
If you want to learn more about sustainability at our University, you can explore a variety of subject areas on our website, in our Climate Action Plan, and on this blog. Additionally, sign up to the Sustainability Network newsletter for a monthly summary of the environmental work happening in our organisation.
Biodiversity is a complex term with a range of definitions and contestations and a powerful reach across environmental work, legislation, and popular culture (Callaway, 2020). Understandings of the concept include the variety of different species in an ecosystem, the nature and intensity of their interactions, and the roles each species plays. These understandings are complex because biodiversity is complex (a fuller guide and definition can be found in our introduction blog here). However, across these definitions a key takeaway is biodiversity’s central importance to the health of both ourselves and the environment (Perrings, 2014; Bonneuil and Fressoz, 2016). Due to this, preserving biodiversity is crucial to supporting ourselves and the natural world and a recent approach to achieving this is biodiversity net gain.
Image: The sunshades of the University’s Ridley 2 Building shield teaching spaces amongst the greenery of Lover’s Lane. Credit: Chris Bishop.
What is Biodiversity Net Gain?
Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) is a policy approach that was adopted by the government in 2021 and came into force in February this year. Unlike previous legislation, this approach stipulates that development projects must create an increase or improvement of biodiversity, rather than just preventing a loss. Therefore, if executed well, this legally-binding process could lead to an ever-expanding spread of biodiversity across our cities. There’s plenty of work involved in achieving these improvements in a meaningful way, however (Bull and Brownlie, 2017).
Following BNG, the first step for any development project is to establish a record, or baseline, of how many biodiverse habitats there are on the relevant site(s). This method, focussing on habitats, is just one approach to baselining and we’re working to gather this data alongside other baselining efforts we’re making to meet the University’s Nature Positive Pledge. There are Lots of things to consider when measuring this data as, when it comes to biodiversity, human impacts and ecosystem complexity make it hard to measure everything (Allard et al., 2023). Consequently, to get as informed an idea as possible of the ecosystems on our estates, we’re focussing not only on the presence of habitats, but also on factors including the campus’s physical context in the city and the types of species that need extra support in our urban environment.
Collaborations with institutions including the City Council, Northumbria University, North East Ambulance service, and the Newcastle NHS Trust have proven important in this process. An example of the power of these partnerships is the Newcastle Biodiversity Group (of which all the above are part), which has helped to join up biodiversity efforts including mapping species migration and habitat corridors across the city. This work has led to the planning of a series of green infrastructure opportunity areas and biodiversity enhancement corridors across the city – and our campus is part of both.
This work is important as, when we then look to improve our estate and add new facilities, such as our cutting-edge Stephenson Building refurb or the sector-leading Health Innovation Neighbourhood, we have an informed view of how best to deliver BNG on these developments. Drawing on expertise from across the region, we can link our efforts to work such as the Newcastle and north Tyneside Biodiversity Action Plan, and, through this, ensure the maximum possible gain in habitat quality, while meeting the legislative requirements of BNG.
Image: The University’s ‘bat house’ shelter for roosts of local Pipistrelle bats. The shelter is pictured under the shade of a nearby tree at the Park View Student Village. Credit: Charlotte Robson.
A huge thank you to my colleague Charlotte for her help with this blog and all the amazing work she does on biodiversity. While we don’t yet have any case-studies of BNG being implemented on campus, we’re always working hard to help improve biodiversity on our estates. You can read about the special care taken to preserve trees as part of our recent Stephenson Building refurbishment here, or learn more about our biodiversity work on our website and our other blog posts.
References
Allard, A., Carina, H., Keskital, E., and Brown, A. (2023) Monitoring Biodiversity: Combining Environmental and Social Data. Taylor and Francis International Publishing.
Bonneuil, C., Fressoz, J-B. (2016) The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us. Fernbach, D. (translator). 1st edition. New York, N.Y.: Verso Books.
Bull, J.W., and Brownlie, S. (2017) ‘The transition from No Net Loss to a Net Gain of biodiversity is far from trivial’, Oryx. 51 (1). pp. 53–59.
Callaway, E. (2020). Eden’s Endemics: Narratives of Biodiversity on Earth and Beyond. Charlottesville, V.A.: University of Virginia Press.
Perrings, C. (2014) Our Uncommon Heritage: Biodiversity Change, Ecosystem Services, and Human Wellbeing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
