Environment

Our Environmental Policies

With over 1,200 hectares of land under our control, Harrowden Turf Ltd is probably the UK’s largest turf producer. By using natural UK-grown products, our customers are doing their bit towards providing a more sustainable national economy. We aim to help the environment and the economy in a number of ways.

• Creating wildlife habitat
• Avoiding the use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides
• Using local suppliers
• Employing local people
• Reducing carbon footprint

Wildlife habitats

Harrowden Turf are committed to caring for and improving the wildlife habitats in our control. The policy on all of our farms is to:

• Plant more hedges wherever practical
• Plant and maintain wildflower margins around fields and beside tracks and roadways
• Manage the wooded areas on the farm to benefit birds and mammals
• Keep ditches and waterways free from pollutants and encourage biodiversity
• Provide a sustainable supply of food and shelter for a wide range of wildlife species

Blogposts on our websites give regular updates on the success of our wildlife conservation programs.

Use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides

Farm policy is to keep the use of artificial fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides to an absolute minimum.

Harrowden Turf are lucky in that our products are grown on soils that are naturally good at generating and retaining plant nutrients so we don’t need to add much extra fertiliser at all.

Our well qualified and experienced staff know exactly how to manage the growing crops so that they are healthy enough to resist pests and diseases. That means that we rarely have to use insecticides, fungicides or weed killers. It also means that you might find a bug or two in your turf but that’s nothing to worry about – it just confirms that the product is well balanced and eco-friendly.

Local suppliers

If there’s one thing that Harrowden Turf are passionate about, it’s supporting local businesses whenever we can.

Some of our inputs come from National Companies because by bulk-buying we can make cost savings and pass them on to our customers. However, services such as IT support, vehicle maintenance, recruitment, printing and office supplies are all sourced from as close to home as possible.

Reducing carbon emissions

Our tractors, turf harvesting machines, delivery lorries and company cars use a lot of fuel in a year. We try to minimise their impact on the environment by buying fuel-efficient vehicles and keeping them well maintained.

Deliveries of turf, topsoil, Enviromat and Meadowmat are organised so that each lorry has the shortest possible journey. That does sometimes mean that not all of our customers can have their goods delivered before 9am but we do our best to meet customers’ needs AND keep fuel consumption to the absolute minimum.