Rachel Bailey Garden Design Ltd

Rachel Bailey Garden Design Ltd is an award-winning landscape design practice whose work encompasses residential, public and commercial projects in both urban and rural settings. The gardens they create are unique and plant-filled to capture the essence of the place and are beautiful as well as functional.

Rachel Bailey, Principal Designer & Director, is acutely aware of the need to manage the business responsibly. More importantly, she works hard to ensure that the potential negative impacts of the gardens they work on are minimised and the potential positive impacts maximised. Green Small Business worked with Rachel to build on the business’s already-established good practice and put in place:

• A baseline carbon footprint for the business operations, which will allow progress over time to be tracked.
• An environmental policy setting out a high-level, public-facing commitment to environmental responsibility and the environmental priorities of the business.
• A set of design principles which clearly and concisely articulate how the policy commitments will be implemented through their design approach. These principles will be used not only to provide a clear framework for their design activity but also for the process of engagement with clients and contractors.
• An environmental action plan, containing a series of practical actions to address all of the environmental impacts of business operations, garden design, project delivery and maintenance.

We used our work with Rachel as a case study in a recent evening CPD session for members of the Society of Garden Designers. A recording of the session will be available to members and a longer 1-day session is planned for early 2023.

“Having a baseline number for the carbon footprint of our business allows us to measure changes that we make to reduce this. Without an actual figure, it is easy to think that what we are doing is lessening our environmental impact, when it may not be having the kind of impact we hoped. Being certified will show that we are serious in reducing the environmental impact of the business – not just ‘Greenwashing'”