The employee-owned chain received verification from Planet Mark, the external environmental specialists who have been employed to monitor the company’s emissions.
Childbase’s nurseries are also pushing ahead with plans to achieve ‘net zero’ emissions by 2030 and have invested in a United Nations-certified carbon reduction project aimed at supporting colleagues and customers to make more sustainable travel choices.
The Sustainable Travel Challenge, co-ordinated by Furthr, involves short surveys on colleague and customer travel habits, incentivised with Amazon gift token prize draws and trophies for settings recording the most improvement.
Monthly emails are also circulated, providing bespoke advice on sustainable travel switches together with the message that every single ‘green switch’, no matter how small, will have an impact.
The 'climate positive' achievement is the latest in a run of green credentials.
Last month, all the group's nurseries were awarded the Eco-Schools Green Flag accreditation for their commitment to exceptional environmental awareness and conservation.
The chain also provides a ‘Cycle to Work’ programme.
Emma Rooney, Childbase Partnership managing director, said, ‘Halting the destruction of our planet is the ultimate challenge of our time and one, given our 32-year commitment to give children the best possible future, we simply couldn’t ignore.’
She added, ‘In accelerating our plans to address environment-damaging behaviours we can change now, while compensating for those currently beyond our reach, the Childbase community of over 10,000 colleagues and parents has the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to tackling climate change.’
Currently, Childbase Partnership is funding the distribution of solar water heaters across India and a wind farm in the northern state of Rajasthan offsetting to the tune of 6,500 tCo2e (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) which effectively wipes out its verified carbon footprint of 5,903 tCO2e and creates a ‘credit’ to account for unknowns.
At home, building on ‘the zero waste to landfill’ programme and a 15-year-record of green energy use, the company is planting over 2,000 trees through the Eden Reforestation Project and committing £170,000 to complete an LED lighting replacement programme in all settings.
To celebrate their achievements and World Environment Day (5 June) Childbase nurseries conducted themed Eco events.
At Rowan Tree Day Nursery children, parents and staff collected a week’s worth of plastic containers to show children the scale of the problem and its impact on the world’s oceans. The ‘material’ will also be used to make bird feeders, planters and other junk modelling/recycling activities with the remainder appropriately recycled.