Celebrating A Year of Willing Volunteers

Total Number of Hours: 1,150

Total Number of Volunteers: 226

Total Number of Days: 20

GreenTheUK has seen an incredible rise in the number of companies choosing to give up their time to help local wildlife habitats. Across 20 days in 2024, 226 employees dedicated an accumulative 1,150 hours to volunteering with GreenTheUK and our charity partners. Considering 92% of HR executives agree that volunteering contributes to the enhancement of employees' professional skills, according to a survey by Deloitte, this is a fantastic achievement for wildlife and the companies we work with.

We have been so impressed by the willing and hard-working attitude of our volunteers this year. Everyone arrived with the ‘can-do’ attitude required to complete the tasks in hand, much to the appreciation of our charity partners and local authorities connected with the projects.

Thank you to the following companies for spending a day in the great outdoors with us: LRG, HH Global, VSBW, Rygor Group, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Snapchat, Riello UPS, Wellcome Trust, LMAX Group, Sanofi, esure, Lovell Partnerships, Tempur UK, Westfield London and Urban Planters.

A highlight includes hosting our first volunteering event at Leighton Redwoods with Riello UPS, in partnership with the Royal Forestry Society. Located in Welshpool, Wales, this unique woodland is planted with Giant Redwoods, Coast Redwoods and Dawn Redwoods some of which are over 160 years old. Jen Turner from the RFS, shared some fascinating facts about redwoods including their impressive resistance to fire and ability to reshoot if they fall down. One tree in the woodland which fell down in 1936 hit the ground and rooted into the soil from which 10 new trees grew from the trunk. The team from Riello UPS helped manage this woodland by cutting back overgrown shrubs in the accessible parking area and along the paths. We also created a long clear path to help prevent adventurous mountain bikers from damaging the tree roots.

We welcomed HH Global to Hockeridge and Pancake Wood in Berkhamsted this year, who came together from around the country to help manage the woodland. Some colleagues met face-to-face for the first time, so it was the perfect opportunity to meet and connect in nature, as they walked through the centuries of history the forest stands on. Despite the rain, the team worked hard to clear overgrown holly shrubs from the woodland. While not an invasive species, the holly is overgrown in the forest, preventing sunlight from reaching the ground and stopping birds from flying through the underbush. Armed with loppers, poppers, and bow saws, new pathways were cleared out and habitat piles created for insects and other small critters.

Another highlight was working with a small team from esure Group at Quarry Hangers, Surrey. Buglife and Surrey Wildlife trust explained why their help is so valuable as sites like this were neglected during Covid-19 so there’s a lot of work to do to ensure the area is biodiverse and a rich habitat for pollinators. The esure team worked to pop tree saplings that are taking over to allow more space for wildflower meadows to bloom and thrive. This steep site looks over Surrey and all its greenery, although the audible nearby motorways were a reminder of pollution and the importance of creating insect superhighways to help insects move more freely across the landscape.

Lots of volunteers joined us at various green spaces in London, some hidden, some not. These spaces - parks, fields, marshes, and more, are vital to the city’s biodiversity and maintaining them is no easy feat. That is why we’re working with the London Wildlife Trust to get people out and about and volunteering to keep our green spaces healthy. On Wild Work Days, volunteers tackled different types of conservation work ranging from building bug hotels and dead hedges to removing invasive species and clearing overgrown brambles. A big thank you to all of the teams from Snapchat, Sanofi, The Wellcome Trust, Lovell Partnerships, and Fiera Real Estate who took part.

In the heart of Southwark outside the Canopi building, LRG supported the creation of a new wildflower garden with GreenTheUK and Wilder London. A concrete section of pavement was de-paved, with the stones being used to create the wall of the new greenspace. The team from LRG put in lots of hours to build a Hugelkultur, a type of garden that utilises wooden branches underneath compost and soil which will provide nutrients to the plants as they decompose, before planting a mixture of species that will benefit local wildlife. Many thanks to LRG for taking the time to create a greener space in London.

As part of the Solent Seascape Project, GreenTheUK is working with The Blue Marine Foundation to help restore native oyster reefs on the South Coast. Oysters are a keystone species for biodiversity, and bringing back native populations will improve both water quality and create new habitat for other species. Before re-introducing these oysters, they need to be individually cleaned in accordance with the Biosecurity Measures Plan to avoid including invasive and harmful species such as parasitic worms into the new reefs. Beyond supporting the oysters themselves, two organisations took the time to volunteer and help clean the oysters. Thank you to Antac Support Services and VSBW, a joint venture between VolkerStevin and Boskalis Westminster for helping out our coastal community.

The Yorkshire Arboretum is a special place when it comes to biodiversity. Not only is it a historic site that is home to more than 6,000 trees, many of which are home to endangered species, it is home to one of the original B-Lines meadows planted 12 years ago. The B-Lines is a nationwide project founded by Buglife to restore wildflower meadows across the country to link existing wildlife areas together. Jazz Pharmaceuticals with GreenTheUK and Buglife spent a day volunteering at the Arboretum, learning about the history of the project and the site, then planting new meadows and building a large dead hedge - prime habitat for insects and small creatures, to further improve biodiversity on site. A very big thank you to Team Jazz, who took an entire day out of their offsite to make a difference in Yorkshire.

In September 2024, we spent the day at Canvey Wick, a Site of Special Scientific Interest owned and managed by Buglife and the RSPB. A team from LRG spent the day hand-pulling evening primrose, birch saplings and sea buckthorn to allow other more pollinator-friendly species to flourish. The ground was hard, despite the sandy soil, so the hard-working team used loppers and spades to dig out the deeper roots. Canvey Wick is a mixture of grassland and scrub that sits alongside estuarine habitat. It is home to over 2,000 species of invertebrates, including endangered species such as the rare Shrill Carder Bee and Brown-banded Carder Bee.

If you’d like to take a look at all our volunteering events this year, please do visit our events gallery. A special thanks to our charity partners RFS, Buglife, Blue Marine Foundation and London Wildlife Trust for your expert delivery and enthusiasm. We are looking forward to many more volunteering days in 2025.