Building biodiversity across Workman-managed assets: from grass roots to overarching evergreen strategy, our teams think green.
Biodiversity is not an optional extra – without it, there’s no life. What’s more, nature has the potential to support the global economy. A focus on biodiversity in the built environment could create more than $3 trillion in business opportunities and 117 million jobs globally by 2030, according to the World Economic Forum.
Indeed, today’s investors must take heed of incoming regulation around urban greening. Firstly, Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), which is specific to development projects and ensuring a positive impact on biodiversity, and secondly the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), which is a broader framework for incorporating nature-related considerations into financial decision-making and reporting.
Since 2020, when we began our sponsorship of the Natural History Museum’s Urban Nature Project, and developed our Biodiversity Toolkit, our Workman Property Management and Building Consultancy teams have increased their focus on improving biodiversity across the Workman- managed portfolio.
As part of Building Biodiversity, our bid to increase biodiversity within the property industry for the benefit of our clients and their occupiers, we remain very much focused on initiatives to help our clients build biodiversity at their properties.
Not only has our ESG team been working at the highest levels to create overarching biodiversity strategies for our institutional fund clients, our onsite teams have also been hard at work at the grass-roots, helping devise initiatives large and small – including rooftop allotment schemes, community gardens and wildflower meadows.
Here are a few examples of our efforts:
Aztec West Business Park, Bristol
This Workman-managed out-of-town office park in Bristol offers a wide range of on-site amenities with occupier health and wellbeing in mind. Recently, the Workman onsite property management team instructed landscaping specialists Nurture to undertake additional biodiversity initiatives.
Over the past year, Aztec West Business Park has seen the installation of 10 bird boxes, six insect hotels, a hedgehog house, three insect habitat piles, 10 wildflower areas, 2000 spring-flowering bulbs, and 300 bee-friendly pollinating plants around borders onsite.
The site team have also created a Nature Trail alongside the South Lake, featuring tree-mounted insect hotels and log piles along the trail.
Bagshot Retail Park
At this Workman-managed retail park, which benefits from considerable frontage on to the A30 and forms the sole out-of-town provision with anchor retailers Waitrose, Hobbycraft, Subway, and Pets at Home.
Our onsite team has recently commissioned a rainwater harvesting survey, which demonstrated the suitability to store the natural rainfall for irrigation of the plants and shrub areas. Rainfall from downpipes could be stored in water butts for plant watering and irrigate new SUDs (Sustainable Urban Drainage) planters, which could be planted with a range of wildflowers to increase the biodiversity of the site. There is also a green roof on site at Bagshot Retail Park (pictured), which the onsite team has seeded with wildflowers.
Great Northern
The onsite team at Manchester’s Great Northern are running multiple ongoing projects to provide a greener, more natural environment for residents and visitors to enjoy, and to encourage wildlife and insects back to the site to create a biodiverse environment, with a mix of plants across different areas of the site.
This has included creating new planting areas, sandpits and playhouses and adding planters with insect-friendly plants. Aesthetics and seating with newly planted benches, floral murals and floral painting of the playhouse, along with floral installations for seasonal events mean the environment buzzes with life.
Kirkby Shopping Centre
Kirkby Shopping Centre, is a community based Town Centre scheme that had an extended retail area added in 2021 featuring a Morrisons superstore, a drive-thru Taco Bell restaurant and a Home Bargains. The Centre has fourteen small planters located along the main St Chads Parade Mall, that have previously been utilised for seasonal flowers and year around shrubbery.
Having been a target of anti-social behaviour in the past, with plants damaged by local youths, the planters lay empty and unloved for some months.
To combat this, the Workman onsite property management team have created a community partnership with 12 local primary schools, to involve the local school children in the planting and maintenance of the planters. The idea is to create a community green space, where children of all ages can get involved and feel a sense of ownership, not only delivering biodiversity, but also community engagement.
Manor Walks Shopping & Leisure, Cramlington
At Workman-managed Manor Walks Shopping & Leisure in Cramlington, two beehives have been on site with the goal of helping pollination in the local area, as well as supplying a small amount of honey to colleagues.
The team has also fitted guttering to three sections of roof, which collects rainwater into 500-litre water tanks. The harvested rainwater supply is then used water plants throughout the year, with a saving of approx. 800-1000 litres per week.
The scheme is self-sufficient with regards to growing its own plants, from planting 1500 bulbs two years ago, to sowing approx. 3,000 seeds per year which the team grows on site using hydroponics and grow lights. Last year saw the team winning a silver gilt for from Northumbria in Bloom. This commendation acknowledged the high standards of horticulture, innovative projects, community involvement and environmental responsibility demonstrated by the team while enhancing the aesthetics of the shopping centre.
“The Silver Gilt Award is a testament to the hard work, dedication and creativity displayed by the Manor Walks Shopping & Leisure team,” said Nick Lambert, Manor Walks’ Centre Manager. “We have strived to create an environment that promotes sustainability, environmental responsibility and a sense of pride in our shopping centre. This recognition from Northumbria in Bloom encourages us to continue enhancing our efforts and pursuing even higher standards in the future.”
Ocean Plaza, Southport
At Ocean Plaza Southport, the Workman onsite property management team have taken two unused raised car park islands and turned them into green spaces.
The team also created bug hotels out of the concrete bollards.
One Brunswick Square, Bristol
At One Brunswick Square, a multi-occupier office space opposite Cabot Circus in Bristol’s city centre, the atrium space was refurbished with a range of planting and greenery during summer 2023 to brighten up the space and bring in some biodiversity.
Putney Exchange
Last year, just in time for summer, the Workman LLP onsite Property Management team at Putney Exchange Shopping Centre, in London, unveiled its upcycled urban pocket garden. In the making for a whole year, the pocket garden not only encourages biodiversity, but also offers a calm space for centre staff to take time out.
In the process, the centre team has re-used and repurposed unused items. So far, the garden features two recycled lockers and leftover building materials, with a bench and extra planters made from old crates. The next step is to build a bug hotel and of course, to watch the plants grow.
Sovereign Shopping Centre, Boscombe
Owned by NewRiver REIT and managed by Workman, Sovereign Shopping Centre is at the heart of Dorset’s Boscombe in Bournemouth, boasting a range of national retailers including Boots, Lidl and Wilko. The onsite team at the centre take their environmental responsibility seriously, and have recently installed four planters within the mall. These were planted with bamboo, which releases 35% more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees.
The team also introduced six beehives and a bee garden on the roof of the centre, next to the bee location. Every year this is planted with pollinating plants to feed the bees, which in turn produce honey, which local food-growing charity Grounded Community sell to help fund the project.
Working with the same charity, the team installed a Rocket Composter, taking the food waste and waste such as hair cuttings from hairdressers, retailers and cafes to produce compost, which is used in the bee garden to help grow the plants and within the planters in the centre. In the coming year, with the support of the Bournemouth Coastal BID, the team is looking at introducing two trees into the mall spaces.
There are also plans to create a Micro Greens Project, using the centre’s glass atriums which work like greenhouses. On a balcony around the main atrium, using stainless steel shelving units, the team plans to grow micro greens the whole year round. Starting small at first with around four shelving units, this project will be expanded if successful. Again, the project will be operated in conjunction with Grounded Community, also using the compost produced on site.
See the video of the bees at Sovereign Shopping Centre in action here: https://youtu.be/Ak1U_vUF2bs
Skypark, Glasgow
The onsite team at Federated Hermes-owned Glasgow campus office Skypark have recently provided a small corner of the estate to the nursery children and staff for them to plant and grow their veg, herbs and flowers. One of the maintenance team even built some planters for them from scrap wood.
The site also plays host to several beehives, and holds regular ‘meet the bees’ session on site, where local schools and occupiers have been invited to come along and learn about the bees.
Silverburn, Glasgow
Relaunched for World Environment Day, the community garden at Workman-managed retail and leisure destination Silverburn had been vandalised in 2021 and neglected since. In May 2023, thanks to Silverburn volunteers and grounds maintenance contractors Instant Impact Group, the garden is back – and looking brighter than ever.
To mark World Environment Day 2023, members of the Workman LLP Retail & Leisure and Building Consultancy teams joined the Silverburn onsite management team and Instant Impact Group to give the centre’s community garden a much-needed makeover.
Works carried out included replacement of a damaged poly tunnel, replanting the entire garden with vegetables, and climbing plants, and repairing the fencing. Meanwhile, tables and benches were placed at the community garden for the public to enjoy, a bug hotel was built using old wooden pallets, and soil from where the wild flowers were placed, a compost heap was introduced for cut grass, and finally, rebranded and refreshed signage was erected.
Touchwood, Solihull
Touchwood, a Workman-managed shopping and entertainment complex in Solihull featuring more than 80 stores – including John Lewis, and more than 20 bars & restaurants – has recently introduced two Western Red Cedar Classic Cottage Garden bee hives and a brood of Buckfast honeybees to the rooftop of the Centre, with the aim of increasing biodiversity and pollination across the site.
Honey extracted is placed into branded jars and promoted during local Sustainability Business Improvement District events and fun competitions such as naming the hives to raise awareness on the importance of increasing bee colonies year on year.
In addition to living hives, Touchwood have purchased a virtual Beehive with brood box display, which is used as an educational tool during student work experience placements.
Workshops are currently underway to install planting, herb gardens, rainwater harvesting butts, bird boxes and bug farms on the rooftop of the Centre to further support biodiversity and promote health and well being to the Centre team.
