Cultivating Sustainability: Composting and Kitchen Garden Initiative in Barbados

Composting is a concrete action to tackle climate change and it is expected to reach ~USD 5.7 billion by 2025. It is known that composting helps address climate change in various ways by: a) reducing the amount of methane released into the atmosphere, b) capturing carbon in the soil, lowering carbon dioxide emissions, c) helping grow plants and vegetables, which will also sequester carbon dioxide and enhance food sovereignty d) reduces the need for nitrogen fertilizers, a source of nitrous oxide. All of them being strategic issues in Barbados.

The Barbados IDB Country Office is on the frontlines of the climate crisis and is committed to embracing and promoting sustainability in every aspect of its operations but also leading by example and concrete action… And guess what?

📢 Commitment has no greater metric than action! 📢

This Composting and Kitchen Garden initiative aims to foster environmentally conscious habits that can be applied in our offices and homes. By cultivating a flourishing kitchen garden on-site, we are providing ourselves with fresh herbs/produce, promoting composting best practices, and taking the fight for sustainability into our own hands. 🌿🍅♻️

🌱 Our Green Space 🌱

The Entrance to Barbados’ Green Space Seen Pictured Above.

Birthed with good intentions and ultimately wrung off life by the pandemic, our existing kitchen garden needs a revival. A revival that is sure to serve as a source of inspiration, wellness, and sustainability, further strengthening our sense of community and beautifying our surroundings in the process. We are kicking off this initiative with an herbal garden nourished by the very compost we’ll be creating. Imagining the wonderful scent of fresh parsley, green onion, or basil won’t be very difficult when you visit our kitchen garden! Our goals include expanding to include other produce that provides us fresh salads and other healthy goodies. Our kitchen garden will provide an opportunity for employees to experience the joy and satisfaction of eating locally-grown, organic produce. From aromatic herbs to vibrant vegetables, this initiative encourages healthier eating habits and supports employee well-being.

Our Kitchen Garden needed some TLC, and we were there for it!

♻️ Don’t Waste it; compost it! ♻️

This initiative goes way beyond the physical aspect of growing and reaping produce; it also encompasses the core ideals of cyclical sustainability and waste management. Composting organic waste diverts valuable resources from the landfills and transforms them into nutrient-rich compost that enriches our garden soil and completes the sustainability cycle. We’re encouraging office-wide participation, and we hope everyone is inspired to collect and contribute their organic waste to the compost drive; everyone gets a compost bucket! Further to this, we’ve got a training session lined up with The Caribbean Permaculture Research Institute that aims at sensitizing everyone to the ins and outs of composting and its many benefits. We’re keen to learn all about how composting helps create garden superfood while positively impacting our lives, in and out of the office!

These initiatives are a major step in our continuing efforts to inspire green and sustainable workspaces, and we hope to inspire our colleagues here and across the organization and other institutions, even the readers 😊. The journey that leads to reduced environmental impact and a greener workplace starts here, so join us as we embark together… Let’s sow the seeds of change and reap the rewards of a greener future! 🌱💪🌎

Some additional facts we wanted to share as we started this adventure:

• Composts don’t have to be smelly! That’s right! Compost piles don’t necessarily smell; if they do, it likely contains animal products or maybe is too wet.
• Composting captures Greenhouse Gasses (GHGs). Composting can sequester (or capture) carbon in the soil! Like trees do! This is one of the best facts about composting because not only can composting be used to reduce emissions linked to sending waste to landfills, but it can actually help trap carbon that might otherwise wind up in the atmosphere. #WalkingTheTalk on #climate
• Many nations in the Caribbean are subject to the paradox of food, proper management of solid waste and, in Barbados, lack of soil. This leads to the perfect case to foster and embrace composting. Did you know that a study conducted in Barbados in 2005 on solid waste characterization at the Mangrove Pond Landfill concluded that based on the three streams of waste (rural residential, urban residential and institutional, commercial, and industrial), organics comprised 30% of the solid waste stream, paper & cardboard were 24%, and textiles were 7%? However, considering the fact that some textiles are made with cotton, which is organic, and that some newspapers are compostable, therefore the actual percentage of compostable materials found in this solid waste study accounts for over 50%.

The IDB‘s Corporate Sustainability Program (CSP) supported our composting and kitchen garden project in the Barbados office. CSP’s commitment to sustainability has not only had a positive impact on our office but has also inspired us to continue striving for a greener future.