Habitat targets!

At the moment we have a self-set target to manage 60% of University Land with biodiversity as a priority by 2035. The level of 60% was set by the University of St Andrews Environmental Sustainability Board in September 2021. The vision of the University’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy sets out that we ‘will show moral and practical leadership by achieving ‘net zero by 2035’. This includes net zero impact on the planet, encompassing emissions, as well as stopping other forms of environmental degradation’. The University’s Environmental Sustainability Board created an overall plan”Estate Use and Masterplanning under the Estate, Energy and Environment” that defined targets and goals. 60% is a Key Performance Indicator in this plan. The statement in that module is as follows:

Establish a nature positive estate, with the majority of our land (>60%) contributing towards our biodiversity strategies by 2035 (area nature positive estate m²/total estate m²)

There are three aspects to the target:

Is 60% the right level?

Is 2035 too far in the future?

What exactly does “manage with biodiversity as a priority” mean – and should we aim for particular, more specific criteria?

This is an ongoing debate and we hope to simply deal with this by pushing up the standards – yes, we can probably do more than 60% and sooner than 2035, and yes, we can improve what we do with our land allocated for biodiversity so that we have more biodiversity and more functional ecosystems.