Philanthropic Projects Manager
10 min read
Over the past year, we’ve noticed a clear shift in what businesses are asking us for. Alongside their global climate commitments, more and more organisations want to support local nature recovery in the places where their people live and work, and where their customers are.
Our 2026 Climate Commitments Report backs this up. 39% of UK businesses explicitly favour UK-based projects when choosing which environmental initiatives to support, compared with just 16% who prioritise global projects. Three-quarters (75%) agree that investing in nature where they operate is an investment in their own resilience. Yet only 18% have actually implemented local nature-based solutions in the past two years.
Today, we’re launching 11 new UK tree planting and reforestation projects to help close that gap.
Stretching from Kent to Wester Ross in the Scottish Highlands, the new projects will see more than 34,000 trees planted over the coming months, in locations including Manchester, York, Sheffield, Bristol, Leicestershire and Surrey. Together with our existing UK projects, including peatland restoration in the Peak District with Moors for the Future and reforestation and habitat restoration at Dumyat in Scotland, they give businesses across the country more opportunities than ever to fund nature on their doorstep.
In this article, we’ll introduce the new projects and explore why local nature recovery matters: not just for the landscapes themselves, but for the businesses that fund them, from engaging employees to connecting with customers and communities.
Meet the 11 new UK reforestation projects
From city parks to river floodplains and coastal forests, our new projects are spread across England and Scotland, so more businesses than ever can fund nature recovery close to where their people and customers are. Each one has been assessed against our Nature Projects Assessment Framework, and each is rooted in its local landscape and community.
North of England
Seymour Park, Manchester: 2,000 native trees will form a hedgerow wildlife corridor through one of Trafford’s busiest parks, linking its mature trees with nearby green spaces. Local schools, young people and community volunteers will plant and care for the hedge together.
River Foss, York: 3,500 trees will create native woodland, wet woodland and hedgerow along the River Foss, supporting York’s long-term flood management plans in a priority area of the local nature recovery strategy. Volunteers will help plant and care for the new woodland.
Midlands and East of England
The National Forest, Leicestershire: 2,500 native trees will create two new publicly accessible woodlands at Ratby and Chittermans. At Chittermans, the planting will link two ancient woodlands on land closed to the public for at least 200 years.
Milton Keynes: Four projects across the city will restore degraded urban green spaces, from new native copses at Galley Hill to a diverse new hedgerow in Shenley Brook End and Tattenhoe. Local residents and community groups will help plant and maintain them.
Horseheath, Cambridgeshire: 5,000 trees will create a new native woodland around an outdoor classroom at Horseheath Lodge, hosting weekly Forest School sessions, guiding and scouting groups, and wider community activities.
South of England
Great Avon Wood, Bristol: 1,613 native trees will connect two isolated fragments of Great Avon Wood, creating a corridor for wildlife in a heavily deforested area. The site is part of the newly announced Western Forest.
Freshford, Winscombe and North Petherton, Somerset: 1,250 native trees and hedgerow plants will create wildlife corridors across three sites. Two of them were designed by Youngwilders’ Wild Stewards, putting young people at the forefront of conservation.
Syde Park Farm, Gloucestershire: 18 native tree species will form a shelterbelt and mid-field “roundels” on an organic farm in the Cotswolds, protecting livestock and land from wind and extreme weather while boosting biodiversity. The farm also offers free farm walks and school visits.
Thorncombe Valley, Surrey: 1,450 native trees will restore canopy lost to ash dieback across two farms in Bramley, helping steep valley slopes hold water through droughts and heavy rain. The project grew from a local neighbour’s idea and now has its own volunteer group.
Thanet, Kent: 3,000 trees will create a native mini-woodland and two urban hedges in Thanet, which has the lowest tree canopy cover in Kent at just 4%. At least 100 local people will help plant, and a new Thanet Tree Care Club will look after the trees long term.
Scotland
Applecross, Wester Ross: 8,500 native trees will help turn a former Sitka spruce plantation at Torgarve Woods into native woodland, enhancing the important temperate rainforest ecosystem in this region. The community-owned project includes a new orchard and green skills training for local volunteers.
The partners behind the projects
The new projects are delivered with two long-standing Ecologi partners. International Tree Foundation is a charity that works with local communities to plant trees and restore forests where they can have the fastest, most lasting impact for people and the planet. It leads ten of the new projects. Protect Earth, a registered charity in England and Wales, exists to plant, and help people plant, as many trees as possible across the UK. It delivers the new projects in Surrey and Gloucestershire.
They join our existing UK partners. Moors for the Future Partnership has been restoring blanket bog across the Peak District and South Pennine moors since 2003, transforming more than 35 square kilometres of degraded peat. The Future Forest Company runs award-winning, landscape-scale reforestation and nature restoration projects, including our reforestation and habitat restoration work at Dumyat.
Why does local nature recovery matter in the UK?
The UK’s need for nature recovery is urgent. As Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England, puts it:
That loss isn’t only a story about wildlife. The landscapes around our towns and cities do vital work for the people and businesses within them. Woodlands slow the flow of water after heavy rain, cool neighbourhoods during heatwaves and give wildlife space to recover. Healthy peatlands hold water through dry summers, lock away carbon and reduce the risk of wildfire.
This year showed what happens when that natural infrastructure is under strain. The summer of 2026 was the UK’s hottest on record, bringing wildfires, water shortages and disruption to transport and workplaces across the country.
That’s why resilience increasingly starts close to home. When a business funds nature recovery in the places where it operates, it invests in the landscapes its employees, customers and communities depend on every day. (We explore the business case in more depth in Nature risk is business risk: how restoration can build resilience.)
But the value of local nature isn’t only about managing risk. It’s also about the connection people feel to the places they know and love, and that’s where some of the biggest opportunities for businesses lie.
Three ways local nature recovery creates value for your business
Funding nature recovery close to home doesn’t just benefit the landscape. It gives businesses a story that resonates with the people who matter most to them.
Here are three ways businesses are telling that story.
1. Engaging your employees
People care about the places where they live and work. Connecting your team with a nature project in a landscape they know and love makes climate action feel tangible, not abstract.
Businesses are already recognising this. Our 2026 Climate Commitments Report found that employee engagement and education is the most common approach businesses take to climate and nature action, used by 30%. More than a fifth (22%) would fund nature restoration through employee engagement budgets, and 32% see going beyond compliance as vital for attracting top talent.
Technology and consulting company Capgemini shows what this can look like in practice. In the UK, every new joiner is welcomed with a newly planted tree. Through Capgemini’s non-financial award scheme, 25 trees are planted whenever an employee sends a colleague a thank-you or congratulations e-card, or a nomination for an award such as employee of the month is approved. It turns everyday moments of recognition into climate action and gives employees a reason to keep taking part.
With local projects, these moments could become even more meaningful: a new joiner’s tree planted a short journey from the office, or a colleague’s award celebrated by restoring a woodland in the community where the team works.
2. Strengthening your tenders and proposals
For businesses bidding for contracts, particularly in the public sector, social value is increasingly part of how proposals are scored. Funding nature recovery, such as tree planting for businesses, in the communities where you deliver a contract gives you a tangible, local commitment to point to.
It’s a benefit businesses are already seeing. In our 2026 survey, 22% of businesses actively reducing their emissions said sustainability had helped them win more contracts and business, and 21% said going beyond compliance unlocks high-value contracts.
Marketing group MSQ has built this into how it wins new business. The team plants 500 trees for every client pitch, as well as marking internal moments like work anniversaries and company meetings with tree planting.
Local projects take this a step further. Planting trees in the region where a client is based, or where a contract will be delivered, gives a proposal a commitment rooted in that client’s own community.
3. Connecting with customers and communities
Local nature recovery gives brands something rare: a story customers can see, visit and be part of. In our survey, 19% of businesses said they would fund nature restoration through marketing budgets, and 18% through customer-linked propositions, building nature recovery directly into what they sell.
giffgaff has done exactly that. The mobile network invested £250,000 in restoring the Eastern Moors in the Peak District with Moors for the Future, supporting around ten football pitches’ worth of peatland restoration. The Peak District sits at the heart of the region targeted by giffgaff’s new broadband offer, and the healthy peatland helps protect homes and businesses downstream in cities like Manchester and Sheffield, where many of its members live.
giffgaff has also brought its community into the project, organising three volunteering days where members plant sphagnum moss by hand alongside the restoration team. Two have already taken place, with dozens of members getting involved.
For businesses with customers or employees in Manchester and Sheffield, our new reforestation projects at Seymour Park and Birley Moor now sit alongside this peatland work, giving businesses even more ways to support nature recovery in the region.
giffgaff is also a co-founder, with Ecologi and MG OMD, of Media in Service of Nature, a movement encouraging brands and media owners to pledge at least 0.1% of campaign ad spend to restoring UK ecosystems, turning existing marketing budgets into nature recovery without creating a new budget line.
Find a local nature project near you
Restoring the UK’s nature will take effort from every part of society, and businesses of every size have a role to play. With 11 new reforestation projects across England and Scotland, alongside our peatland and habitat restoration work, there’s never been a better time to fund nature recovery close to home.
Fund a project today. Browse our new projects in the UK projects section of the Impact Marketplace and choose the one closest to your offices, your people or your customers.
Want help building a programme? Whether you want to engage your employees, strengthen your tenders or bring your customers into a nature story, our team can help you design a local nature programme around your goals. Talk to the team
Can’t see a project near you? We’re continuing to grow our UK portfolio, and we want to know where businesses would like to see nature recovery next.
The landscapes on our doorsteps shape our lives, our work and our businesses. Let’s restore them together.