Sustainability Survey

Many thanks to all of you who took part in our survey.

We asked you: "Sustainability in Botanic Gardens: Is It Happening Yet?" From composting to education, creating local markets, or carrying out research - are botanic gardens involved in sustainability? How does the public perceive the gardens on this topic?

We got some very interesting results.

It seems you think that they could do a lot more to contribute to sustainable development. It seems however, that within botanic gardens there is some frustration at slow progress, although people outside gardens think BGs are doing a lot.

You told us you think the main barriers to progress are a lack of understanding of the concept, and restricted budgets.

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Q1 - Have you previously heard of Sustainable Development?

Yes - 90%

No - 10%

Q2 - To what extent do you think botanic gardens are involved in sustainable development?

Q3 - Do you know of any gardens that do any of the following:

Q4 - Please tell us more about this or any other example of a botanic garden you know engaging with sustainable development:

Your answers to this ranged from partnerships with commercial organisations, to internal sustainability audits and processing. See the full list here.

For the most part, it seems to be gardens in richer countries that are implementing sustainability projects - although there were good examples from all around the world.

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Q5 - What are the barriers preventing gardens from engaging with sustainable development?

Q6 - The Expertise of the Survey Respondents

Q7 - Regional Spread:

We had replies from people in 23 countries in all regions except Antarctica! Two thirds were from developed nations (mostly the US, UK and Australia). The range was very wide with respondents from Argentina via Iraq to Taiwan.

Locations of survey respondents

Many thanks and do keep filling in our surveys - we want to know about your experiences and share them with others.

Back to Cultivate Issue 9