Heron House Eco Committee

The Kier CSR and Environmental teams have been back to school promoting biodiversity. Riverview Primary School, which is local to the Heron House project in Manchester, has its own Eco Committee and we were invited to talk to them about what Kier do on site, to protect the environment.

The engagement programme started when Lara Da Rocha Faria (CSR Manager) and Miguel Pariente-Lopez (Senior Environment Advisor) joined the Eco Committee and delivered a workshop on the importance of birds, bees and insects to biodiversity. This involved presentations, food chain games, quizzes on animal habitats and a competition to design bee hotels. A great day was had by all.

The students then spent a number of weeks developing and decorating their bespoke bee hotels, to be judged later in the term by our company mascot, Kieran. During a whole school assembly, the students presented their Bee Hotels with an explanation about the colours, images and words they had chosen. Both the standard of the designs and presentations were outstanding, so much so that Kieran was unable to choose one individual winner, instead he decided they were all winners and all of the students left with a special Kier goody bag.

A special mention needs to go to Kieran Holohan (Assistant Site Manager on Heron House) who bravely wore the Kieran costume on what the hottest day of the summer!

We were delighted to receive some beautifully hand-written letters of thanks from the students and teacher. We will continue working with the Eco Committee when they support us with the planting programme in the courtyard area of Heron House.

Extract from student letter;
Dear Lara and Miguel,
I am writing to thank you for visiting Riverview Primary. I loved learning about bees because we need them and I like learning about them. I know we need to protect the bees in Manchester. I loved decorating our bee hives because I like my design.

A brilliant team effort!!