Chief Executive’s Report

A Bright New Future!

Alittle later than we would have liked due to the pandemic getting in the way of us physically coming together, the board have been busy resetting the Association strategy for the next three years - and there are some exciting times ahead.

We plan to launch the new strategy to members once completed and signed off by the board, but you can expect to see more sustainable, diverse, inclusive, and policy-led initiatives moving forward. The new strategy will form a communications framework that we can use to update board and members alike. Watch this space for more.

My thanks go out to your board and staff members that have given their time up freely to ensure that the Association remains on a forward moving and innovative path.

50th Anniversary Celebrations

That’s right, 2022/23 will be the year that we will be celebrating 50 years of supporting our members and we will reflect across the years to look at how the Association has evolved and celebrate your, and our achievements. We look forward to sharing further detail soon on the exciting events and activities that we have planned.

Plant Health Week

Once again, the Association will be supporting Plant Health Week which will take place 9-15 May 2022. This will be promoted throughout RHS Chelsea Flower Show with a Defra Garden focussed on the ‘Don’t Risk It’ campaign. The emphasis will be on educating the public not to risk bringing cuttings and seeds into the UK from overseas countries due to the biosecurity risk of bringing in pests and diseases.

46th National Landscape Awards 2022

Entries are now open for the 46th National Landscape Awards, read more on page 10. I wanted to personally thank our loyal sponsors who have already signed up for this year’s event, in particular Green-tech as our headline sponsor. I would like to encourage all Accredited members to enter a scheme. For our smaller landscape contractors, garden designers and supplier members it may seem daunting, but I welcome one and all to share your experiences, passion, determination, and drive with fellow landscaping colleagues at the largest industry awards in Europe. You have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain. Visit baliawards. co.uk for more information.

Collaborative Projects

We continually look to work with likeminded organisations in our industry and I wanted to make you aware of just some of the projects that we are currently working on: Sector Survey Working alongside partners Landscape Institute, Historic England, Historic Environment Scotland, Locri, Natural England, Natural Resource Wales, NatureScot, and the Northern Ireland Department for Communities, this pivotal project will produce a rich and informative evidence base, covering the landscape industry (and its neighbouring professions) across the UK, in both the public and private sectors.

Whether it’s understanding skills shortages, diversity issues, declining/ increasing areas of practice, the public sector workforce, or other market failures which hold back the landscape industry, we want to provide a knowledge base that will help us inform not only the Association’s forthcoming renewed corporate strategy, but crucially: a resource to support decision-making in the wider sector, and to make a case for renewed focus on landscape by national policymakers.

Skills shortages across the sector, as well as changes in practice as a result of climate change, the housing crisis, Brexit, etc. demonstrated huge challenges, as well as opportunities to be seized for the next generation of landscape professionals.

In order to do this, we’ll need your help. Keep an eye out for the launch of the survey and help us spread the word.

Embodied Carbon Project One of the wider industry actions is to look at the sector’s role in reducing the embodied carbon of built places, explore policy solutions, and equip the profession to measure their own impact and lead on changing practice across the built environment.

There is now a wider group across the industry looking at working together on this, in particular, we want to explore embodied carbon/sequestration potential for hard and soft landscape materials, the landscape professional’s role in materials specification, and the suppliers/client’s market more generally. The ‘Embodied Carbon’ emissions of an asset are the total GHG emissions and removals associated with materials and construction processes throughout the whole life cycle of an asset. Whole Life Carbon is fast becoming the preferred term as it captures both operational and embodied over the entire life cycle of an asset including its disposal. This therefore will be important for landscape professionals who will be looking to measure the carbon of specified materials throughout their entire life including their potential reuse or disposal. Rebated Fuels regulation changes We are leading on a lobbying piece regarding the Rebated Fuels issue and a number of industry bodies are seeking to join forces on this work which will ensure a more unified voice.

At the 2020 Budget, the Government proposed to remove the entitlement to use rebated fuel from most sectors from April 2022. The measures introduce legislative changes through the Finance Bill 2021 and subsequent secondary legislation to restrict the entitlement to rebated fuel and biofuels except for qualifying purposes.

Entries to the 2022 National Landscape Awards are now open! Pictured - 2021 Principal Award winner Landscape Associates, Modern Family Garden.

Our aim

As a priority, we are asking the Government to reconsider by adding landscape construction and maintenance to its definition of horticulture, thus granting our industry access to rebated fuels.

Alternatively, if this isn’t possible will the government grant the landscaping industry a phased exemption from the incoming expansion to rebated fuel to allow more time for our industry to work with large vehicle manufacturers and continue to transition to more sustainable fuels.

Please read more on this on page 28. Best wishes.

Wayne Grills

Chief Executive