Our 2025 Strategy

These are some of our 2025 goals that will bring multiple positive benefits for London & Londoners:

• 1,000 open spaces improved or looked after.

• 2,500 people progressing into training or employment.

• 5,000 young people more motivated to learn and achieve.

• 100,000 days of voluntary action in local communities.

• 250,000 people helped to reduce their energy and water use.

• 1 million Londoners benefitting from our work.

We monitor the impact of all areas of our work robustly, in order to evidence the positive benefits our projects and programmes have on people, places and planet. From the money households save by becoming more energy efficient, to the tonnes of CO2 our reuse projects save, to the number of urban trees planted and rain water diverted from storm drains by SuDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems). You can discover some of these impacts, made in the past 5 years, in our 2020 Impact Report.

We will achieve these goals by designing our projects & services in line with the following thematic objectives:

Community spaces

Enabling community led environmental improvements to publicly accessible open spaces. We will:

• Inspire, mobilise and support people to take a more active role in improving and managing the local spaces that matter to them.

• Focus activity in neighbourhoods where there is more limited access to high quality open space.

• Work creatively with councils and other partners to maximise the social, economic and environmental benefits of green spaces.

Green infrastructure

Providing technical expertise in sustainable land management and climate change adaptation. We will:

• Provide technical expertise, including sustainable urban landscape design and Geographic Information Systems mapping intelligence.

• Create spaces that are resilient to the changing climate, and that meet the needs of local communities for sport, play and recreation and enhance London’s nature and heritage.

• Develop understanding and expertise around carbon sequestration from our green space projects.

Health & Wellbeing

Encouraging physical activity, promoting healthy eating and addressing environmental causes of health problems. We will:

• Encourage and enable people to improve their health and well-being through physical and sporting activity, or the participation in social prescribing initiatives.

• Help people improve their mental health through specialist support, well-being coaching and signposting.

• Address food poverty by supporting food distribution, promoting community food growing and healthy eating initiatives.

• Focus on improving, and helping Londoners adapt to, major environmental issues that contribute to poor health such as poor air quality or extreme weather events.

Social integration

Using a community participation approach to create stronger, more cohesive communities, to improve the quality of life and opportunity. We will:

• Tackle the social, physical and practical barriers to inclusion, including knowledge and skills, perceptions and confidence, and access issues such as digital exclusion.

• Help socially isolated individuals through activities such as 1-2-1 support and creative group workshops.

• Support the integration of marginalised groups, including refugees, migrants and older people, through peer support, connection to local services and building social networks.

Volunteering

Brokering volunteering opportunities for individuals and organisations. We will:

• Inspire and support volunteers of all ages, finding them the right opportunities, ensuring they get the best possible experience and fulfil the goals that motivated them to volunteer.

• Support organisations to identify volunteering opportunities, and maximise the impact of their volunteers’ time and skill.

Employment and Skills

Providing personal advice and guidance, training, work experience and job brokerage. We will:

• Help the most disadvantaged people improve their skills and move from welfare into sustainable employment by: personal advice and guidance; realistic work placements and trials; addressing barriers to work and linking the right people with the right jobs.

• Deliver accredited training, certifying the skills that people have gained from working with us, and enabling them to gain employment and progress into further training.

Youth work

Providing coaching and positive activities for young people to develop their life skills and fulfil their potential. We will:

• Run clubs and activities for young people that enable them to develop life skills and engage in rewarding work in their local community.

• Work to improve the attitude, attainment, aspirations and wellbeing of young people, coaching them to make the most of their education opportunities, explore meaningful career paths and make positive life choices.

• Facilitate youth social action opportunities for young Londoners.

• Support the mental health and wellbeing of young people.

Green Jobs

Providing practical work experience and training for sustainable employment. We will:

• Provide opportunities for those out of work to gain confidence and skills and find jobs through working on practical schemes to improve local environments, enhancing valuable open space facilities and preparing our neighbourhoods for the impacts of climate change.

• Develop, create and actively promote opportunities for new ‘green’ job roles within Groundwork’s work programmes covering areas such as reuse, water and energy efficiency.

• Work closely with the London agencies driving the move to low carbon and green recovery, ensuring that those most disadvantaged from the labour market can benefit from the jobs created.

Resource efficiency

Reducing waste, energy and water consumption through advice and action. We will:

• Help more people, particularly vulnerable residents, to reap the benefits from more efficient consumption of resources, changing behaviours and improving homes in order to reduce energy and water consumption and reducing utility bills.

• Support public, private and voluntary sector organisations to meet carbon and water reduction targets, wider environmental management aspirations and social responsibility targets.

• Contribute to London’s circular economy by increasing and promoting recycling and reuse, in particular domestic furniture, white goods and bicycles.

Climate Change

Ensuring our programmes and the support we provide to others mitigate the causes and negative effects of climate change. We will:

• Increase Londoners’ awareness and understanding of climate change and support them to minimise the causes and effects of climate change.

• Develop a Groundwork London carbon offset programme to fund carbon reduction activity.

• Actively support and promote greener travel opportunities in the capital.