Well, what a week it has been in the world of creating things built robustly… not to last… the BBC Inside Science programme brilliantly captured the dilemma that occurs when you start looking at complete lifecycles, from a carbon foot-printing of view, from a tree survival point of view and from an economic point of view.
In summary, it’s complicated, and the highly intelligent academics at UCL are doing great work and a call out to the Woodland Trust for helping bring this report about. Unfortunately, the material being patented by Chestnut Natural Capital has not been factored in. Hence, I think there can be a win/win, and in my future blogs, I will point you to all the evidence I am uncovering, which will validate our choice of material and design.
The 2 billion trees we do need in the UK will want to be given the best possible chance, and the nurseries will struggle to get enough seed grown into saplings, so can I suggest that every tree is too valuable to risk losing to wildlife or weather….let us keep survival rates north of 90% with a proper degradable shelter – our native trees deserve that.
Find out more
- BBC Inside Science
- Hub research shows environmental impact of plastic tree shelters in new publication
- The Environmental Performance of Protecting Seedlings with Plastic Tree Shelters for Afforestation in Temperate Oceanic Regions: a UK Case Study