Our partner The Co-operative Bank working together to bring back nature

Friends of the Earth and The Co-operative Bank are working together to bring back nature by helping to restore greenery and wildlife in over 1000 nature-deprived spaces across the country.

The UK is now one of the most nature-depleted nations in the world. As well as being devastating for ecosystems, this decline in nature has a very real impact on people’s mental and physical health.

People living in the most nature-deprived communities are also those most affected by urban heating, pollution, flooding and biodiversity loss.

Postcode Gardeners help bring these communities together, to make their neighbourhoods greener and bring back nature.

Friends of the Earth, The co-operative bank
Two women digging into a grass lawn with a wheelbarrow behind them

Bring back nature

Protecting the natural world has been at the heart of The Co-operative Bank’s unique, customer-led Ethical Policy for over 30 years, driven by their customers’ concerns for biodiversity and the environment.

Supported by Friends of the Earth and The Co-operative Bank, professional Postcode Gardeners will work street-by-street to green their neighbourhood and bring communities together to transform where they live.

How Postcode Gardeners bring back nature
Two women digging into a grass lawn with a wheelbarrow behind them
Gardener and two children looking at the ground

Gardening and community organising

As well as gardening, Postcode Gardeners plan and co-ordinate activities, teach people which plants to grow where and run events to share knowledge and skills.

It’s a powerful combination of gardening and community organising that helps to build social connection and to nourish mental and physical wellbeing, whilst replenishing nature.

In the process, they’ll co-create resilient, thriving and healthy neighbourhoods to benefit nature and local communities across the country.

Gardener and two children looking at the ground