If you return to campus soon, you may notice trees being felled or pruned on site as a programme of works begins to take place; this may be particularly noticeable on Library Road in the coming weeks.

We felt it important to assure you that Warwick makes every effort to protect and maintain the volume and variety of the many trees on our campus estate wherever possible; however, to protect other campus biodiversity and comply with UK Health & Safety requirements, the Estates team are required undertake regular tree surveys across campus to check the individual health of trees and the impact of each tree on the biodiversity around them; these tree surveys may, at times, may require us to prune or fell trees if they are deemed to be high risk, diseased or unsafe.

This means you may see trees being taken down on campus and it may not be evident to you immediately as to why the felling or pruning is taking place. We wanted to ensure you knew that, within our current tree management arrangements, our policy is that for every one tree felled we will replace with either 5m hedgerow or two new trees on campus.

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The Long View

The University will soon be publishing a new Ecology and Biodiversity Plan, aligned to a new institutional Sustainability Strategy, which sets out an institutional approach to achieving our high-level University targets:

• to reach net zero carbon from our direct emissions and the energy we buy by 2030 and,
• to achieve net zero carbon emissions from emissions arising from procured goods and services by 2050

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The Ecology and Biodiversity Plan directly responds to the aims and principles of the approved University Masterplan, promoting the active enhancement of our natural capital and progressing a shift towards more sustainable forms of transport, reducing traffic in the centre of campus and reducing pollution. The plan creates a framework for protecting, creating and enhancing habitats and species and creating safeguarded sites for biodiversity and ecology, including wildlife corridors. It is important that we all take responsibility for protecting ecology and biodiversity as we simultaneously grow as an institution - the University Masterplan, our blueprint for campus development, states that ‘our delivery will result in biodiversity being better than before’.