SHIFT

SHIFT (Pressure group)
Founder	Glenys E Law

SHIFT (Stop Home Insurers Felling Trees) was formed in 2020 as a pressure group to protect trees from being destroyed due to insurance claims. Its scope has broadened to saving trees threatened by developers, local councils and any other bodies.

Roots

The roots of Stop Home Insurers Felling Trees lay in local opposition to a demand from AXA Insurance that 5 mature oak trees in much-loved ancient woodland, Queen’s Wood, be felled in order to protect a neighbouring property from subsidence. This led to a massive public outcry, coming as it did when the corona virus pandemic led people to appreciate their green open spaces more than ever. That one local campaign branched out to become "Community Tree Protectors" and subsequently blossomed into SHIFT. It soon became apparent to the "Community Tree Protectors" that the Queen’s Wood oaks were just one example of a massive and ongoing felling of trees by insurance companies and developers, due to the competitive financial system in which they operate. Despite the worldwide declaration of a climate crisis, trees are still not valued enough to be protected by law, hence why the acronym SHIFT is so apposite.

SHIFT's Jeffrey G Duckett, Emeritus Professor of Botany, QMUL and research associate NHM, says:

"One of the main motivators for this campaign is that neither the government nor the supporters of the Woodland Trust seem to have taken on board the massive difference between the carbon capture of saplings and mature trees. To take but one example from the website of Insurance Giant @axa: it is proudly presented there that earlier this year 100 members of staff visited Heartwood Forest near St Albans to plant over 2,500 trees.

"If we assume these were 10-year-old oaks, each with a carbon capture of 0.1 pounds/year, this equals a total of 25 pounds of carbon capture. Cutting down the 4 oaks in North London’s Queen’s Wood, each with a carbon capture of >60pounds/year equals a total loss of at least 240 pounds of carbon capture.

"Looked at in these terms, AXA would need to plant 250,000 trees to break even on the carbon cost of felling the 4 oaks in #queenswood

"The climate crisis is NOW. We must save existing mature trees NOW, as well as planting new ones for the future."

Change is needed

To save us from climate catastrophe, a fundamental change is needed in the way we see our world; SHIFT's campaign will work towards effecting this change in every way we can, by providing the tools for individuals to save local trees, and campaigning to bring about legislative change at national and international levels.

The group wants to see a SHIFT in attitudes – away from the obsessive planting of new saplings and towards the retention of our existing mature trees.

People

These are the people behind SHIFT:

• Glenys E Law: Chair of CREOS (Crouch End Open Space), founder member of SHIFT.
• Jeffrey G Duckett: Emeritus professor of Botany at QMUL, research associate at the Natural History museum
• Jonathan Popper: Tree officer for Muswell Hill and Fortis Green Association
• Robin Howorth: Chartered Arboriculturist
• Julian Glaser (Treasurer): Barnet-resident activist, retired database analyst
• Louise Lewis: Former Haringey tree warden, trees lead for Highgate Neighbourhood Forum since 1990.
• Marcus Carambola: teacher, musician and activist, with a strong focus on the climate and ecological emergency
• Angela Gokani Brasier (Social media): I ❤ Trees
• Giovanna Iozzi: Creative Writing Teacher, passionate about trees, founder of Haringey Tree Protectors
• Holly Aylett: Research fellow Birkbeck college; UK Coalition for Cultural Diversity
• Gordon Hutchison: retired development consultant, Stroud Green resident and environmental activist.

Open letter to Allianz

On 3 November 2023, SHIFT addressed the following letter to Allianz Insurance in support of the campaign by Haringey Tree Protectors:

Threatened Plane tree at 63 Oakfield Road

I have been reading the 2022 Sustainability Report on your website, and I quote:

"Since 2005, the Allianz Group Climate Change Strategy has encouraged solutions for tomorrow’s climate. It steers the uptake of climate-related risks and opportunities in our insurance and investment business. Regularly updated, it is overseen by the Sustainability Board. Our strategy focuses on three areas: Anticipating the risks of a changing climate; updating policies and processes; providing insurance solutions to protect against physical climate impacts."

This does not, however, seem to be being applied to the home insurance market. It would appear that no new creative solutions have been tried in order to avoid the frequent felling of trees when claims for subsidence are involved. I am sure that the Allianz group are aware that urban trees are a lifeline for residents in our current climate crisis, providing cooling of the streets, cleaning the air, habitats for insects and birds, protection against flooding, not to mention the enormous health benefits for humans. And yet, a tree only has to be ‘implicated’ in an insurance claim for you to demand its destruction. This is so short-sighted! We all know summers are going to get drier and the number of insurance claims will massively increase. Does this mean our urban streets are going to be denuded of the trees we so desperately need? Where are the solutions to protect us from these ‘physical climate impacts’?

If Allianz genuinely is the responsible business it claims to be, you will recognise the urgent need to realign corporate practices to fight climate change. There are two different ways forward: you can continue with your demand for Haringey council to fell this 100-year-old tree or you could be the insurance company that brings in the change we so desperately need. Your letters to tree protectors have tried to hide behind claims of underpinning producing far higher carbon emissions, but have you looked at recent new developments in underpinning that are less carbon-intensive? Have you considered asking the council to try bigger tree pits or an increased watering programme, so that the tree’s roots do not seek water from beneath the foundations? The redirection of roots or the building of a barrier, amongst other solutions has not been investigated with any great determination. It would seem that the existence of underground services such as gas and electricity is just being used as an excuse for not using a root barrier. Have you considered working with the utility providers to find a solution?

Your website boasts a higher-than-ever profit. Under the circumstances, a genuinely sustainable policy would consider ploughing some of these profits into investigating alternatives to tree felling.

You are invited to give a reply which we will post on this site. This could be a great opportunity to really improve your brand image. You could save the Oakfield Road plane as a symbol of goodwill and as a commitment to investigate solutions for the future. Allianz could be the Insurer that we recommend to our followers. Continuing down the present path, however, will undoubtedly lead to an increase in hostility and bad press of the sort that was seen in Sheffield and Plymouth.

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