​Where does your energy come from?

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Green Power

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• Which Supplier? - We try to use Green Energy UK. Their energy is 100% renewable, using solar and wind power and biofuel gas. They are also very competitively priced and were very helpful on the phone, picking up our call almost immediately. www.greenenergyuk.com 

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• Solar Power - Green Energy UK also have solar panel Feed In Tariffs (FIT), which means you can save back the cost of installation by giving energy to the National Grid, and generate your own free energy.​

 

• Give Power?  Nappies and Food Waste can also be turned into biofuel. - we send ours to Biofuel waste disposal companies.

 

• Conserve power!  At Nursery and at home, take a quick audit and cut back where you can.  Maybe use less fridges (but don’t throw food away of course), unplug things like chargers and always use LED lightbulbs.  In hot weather, try to leave off air conditioners and fans, open windows wide, keep blinds down and the curtains closed;  keep a calm atmosphere in the room and give children and staff access to plenty of water.    Make sure staff as well as children are not over-clothed.  Water play for both is great inside too!  In cold weather, close doors, keep rooms at a constant temperature and boilers well-serviced.

 

Energy Cost

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• Food Travel - How much energy has been wasted in getting your food to you? How is it wrapped? Does it need to be? Where does it come from? How far has it travelled? 

 

• Go local!  Nurseries and parents, try to buy from a local grocer and use as many local producers and farmers as possible. Buy wholesale if you can and make one journey only to get your supplies as close to your Nursery’s doorstep as possible. If you use local producers, you are supporting your local economy so that continues to exist. Their existence locally means you waste less energy to acquire food.

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• Bring back glass bottles!  At Nursery, buy your milk in bottles from local suppliers. Your current supplier can change to bottles easily enough. Search www.coolmilk.com for help.  We asked them and changed from plastic to glass!  

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  Trees and the Amazon...Trees are essential for life on Earth! 

 

• Plant Trees - To obtain free trees for nurseries and schools, click on “Plant trees” at www.woodlandtrust.org.uk

 

• Have Meat Free Days - you can implement change to your early years menus - having meat free days is much easier than we think.  See our Home Economics for how to!

 

• Deforestation - BBC News reported in June 2019 that an “area of Amazon rainforest roughly the size of a football pitch is now being cleared every single minute, according to satellite data.”   

 

• Climate Change - National Geographic -  “As the world seeks to slow the pace of climate change, preserve wildlife, and support billions of people, trees inevitably hold a major part of the answer. Yet the mass destruction of trees –deforestation – continues, sacrificing the long-term benefits of standing trees for short-term gain."

 

• Meat Production - Today, one of the biggest causes of forest loss is the expansion of agricultural land for animal feed production, such as soy. And producing meat creates vastly more carbon dioxide than plants such as vegetables, grains and legumes.

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Find out more about this topic by reading our blog post here: