Leading grounds maintenance and landscape creation specialist idverdeidverde is celebrating five years of partnership with RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds).
Bringing together the commercial breadth of idverde and the specialist knowledge of the RSPB has created significant nature conservation achievements across the county, bringing businesses and public organisations into direct contact with their local environment and improved habitats for the species that are critical to our survival.
The nature-based solutions provider first teamed up with the RSPB to support its team in managing green spaces with its contract with the London Borough of Bromley in 2017, which included management of Local Wildlife Sites, Local Nature Reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest.
Having seconded an RSPB colleague onto its team on a permanent basis, idverde has also worked with the charity’s wider team of specialists to ensure it manages these important conservation areas in the most positive, nature-focused way.
idverde now has six permanent RSPB advisers, helping to ensure an emphasis on species and habitat protection in all its projects across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, ensuring knowledge and insight is up to date, thoughtful and relevant.
Training and learning from RSPB colleagues has helped to enhance idverde’s surveying and species recording, as well as the development of community-based projects designed to engage local people with their environment. idverde’s reach and portfolio has brought the RSPB into new areas and projects, helping extend its impact on biodiversity and habitats.
Key achievements over the past five years at Bromley have included recording of new local species, a 25% increase in more naturally managed grassland in Bromley, attracting almost £156,000 external funding for the council’s habitat projects, creating new habitats for butterflies and installing more than 100 swift nest boxes across the Midlands.
Kristian Lennard, Deputy CEO of idverde, said: “As nature-based solutions specialists, we are proud of our partnership with the RSPB which reflects our ambition to be at the forefront of the latest thinking and ideas for the protection of habitats and wildlife.
“This partnership has gone from strength to strength, becoming invaluable to our understanding and approach. The RSPB is now part of the idverde family and a significant asset for our clients, resulting in creative ideas and solutions that have brought benefits to all areas of our work.
‘Rooted in deep expertise and genuine care for our environments, working alongside our RSPB colleagues is both a pleasure and an invaluable lesson in how to better manage our ecosystems.”
Over the next five years and beyond, idverde plans to extend the partnership’s work across its contracts, including a new biodiversity action plan in Bromley, grazing programmes to support wildlife-rich grassland, woodland and wetland regeneration, more butterfly habitat creation, plus hedgehog and bumble bee conservation projects.
Katie-jo Luxton, RSPB Executive Director, Global Conservation, said: “We are proud to be working in partnership with idverde and I have always been impressed by their willingness to go above and beyond the ordinary, creating and managing amazing sites that benefit nature and the local community. Their strength lies in their whole business working together, from the mowing team to the executive board, and I’m very excited to see what the next five years will bring.
‘In these current times, with nature under threat, it’s vital for businesses to stand up and play their part, as we know we can’t save nature alone, and idverde is helping to lead the way.”
