Sustainable Manifesto launched

The Society of Garden Designers (SGD) has published a Manifesto for Sustainable Gardens & Landscapes to present its declaration of intent and to establish principles and methodologies that encourage its Members and Affiliated Business Partners to create gardens and landscapes where sustainability comes first.

The Manifesto is an outcome of the Society’s hugely successful Symposium held earlier this year (2022), where members and experts gathered to consider how to design and specify gardens with a lighter footprint. Sequestering carbon, providing healthy ecosystems and offering diverse habitats were all highlighted to help reverse the decline of biodiversity which has accelerated over the last 50 years.

This initial declaration will be accompanied by a longer Manifesto Support Guide offering practical advice and ideas on how to work more sustainably with contributions collated from SGD members and experts who attended the Symposium.

Lynne Marcus MSGD, chair of the SGD points out that it is hard not to feel paralysed by the enormity of climate change and the implications of the tragic loss of biodiversity: “As garden and landscape designers we are privileged to have the opportunity to make a difference. White it is sometimes easy to take the path of least resistance, we must all be crusaders in this urgent campaign,” she said.

The SGD Manifesto and the Manifesto Support Guide together with associated information sharing sessions and online resources launching in October 2022, are part of a longer-term SGD strategy, set out in its Environmental Action Plan that has been adopted to address both the environmental crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.

The SGD is asking all its Members and Affiliated Business Partners to pledge support for the Manifesto and to commit to adopting responsible and regenerative practices for future projects. You can download the Action Plan here.

Image top of page credit: Tracy McQue MSGD