Partners Update for 2023

Our membership of 1% for the Planet is incredibly important to us. 1% of every sale goes to support the organisations below. It's thanks to you, our customers that we can do this; every order supports these change makers and innovators. Read on to see what they’ve been up to this year! 

Seawilding

Seawilding, based at Loch Craignish, Argyll, is the UK's first community led native oyster and seagrass restoration project. Their flagship projects to restore a million native oysters, and acres of seagrass meadows in Loch Craignish continue to make progress.

They’ve restored 350,000 native oysters to the loch seabed, there are now tens of thousands of native oysters settling into their new home.

In the spring they enlarged their floating nursery which will allow them to grow approximately 300,000 native oysters annually. Alongside restoring their own stocks in Loch Craignish they will now be able to supply other UK restoration projects.

In the last two years Seawilding has planted approximately 1/2 hectare of seagrass in Loch Craignish to enhance the pre-existing 5 hectares of meadows. To do this they continued their experiments with a land-based nursery. Seawilding is trialling the UK’s first seagrass rhizome restoration which involves transplanting 10,000 of these protected plants to a ¼ acre restoration area. We hope to expand on this trial by planting at least 1 acre in 2024.

 Loch Craignish is becoming a living “marine lab” and Seawilding is leading a community bid to have the Loch designated a Demonstration and Research Marine Protected Area by the Scottish Government. Volunteers are essential to our efforts and over the year scores of our community and others have given hours of their time to process seagrass, survey native oysters and to help organise our events. 

Seawilding won two major awards in 2023 – the National Lottery Environment Award and the Holyrood Climate Awards. Thank you for your support, 2023 has been a bumper year for this innovative charity!

Trees for Cities  

Trees for Cities turned 30 this November! The only independent charity working on a global scale focused entirely on planting urban trees, inspiring children to grow and eat good food and providing volunteering opportunities to bring local people together.

Since their inception they have engaged over 80,000 volunteers to plant over 800,000 trees focusing on health, food security, environmental protection, and providing opportunities for education and learning through their Edible Playground and Urban Forest programmes. 

This November marks three decades of Trees for Cities & getting urban trees in the ground across the UK and worldwide. It's been an incredible journey greening towns and cities, & improving people's lives along the way. Join them through their year-long celebrations, gearing up to planting their 2 millionth tree next year! 🌳 

Surfers Against Sewage

An ambitious national marine conservation and campaigning charity, Surfers Against Sewage inspires unites and empowers communities to take action to protect the ocean and our blue spaces. They haven’t taken the foot off the brakes this year and below are the campaigns they have been working on: 

• Water Quality - They are calling for an end to sewage pollution to guarantee safe seas, all year round. Our ambition is to end sewage discharges into UK bathing waters by 2030.  
• Ocean & Climate - To reverse the ocean and climate crisis, we need urgent and drastic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions as well as the rapid embracing of nature-based solutions to limit carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. Our ambition is for the UK to be net-zero by 2030. 
• Ocean Recovery - The UK’s seas host some of the most biodiverse life in the world. However, due to the increasing pressure from human activities, marine biodiversity has decreased dramatically. Our ambition is for 30% of the ocean and all UK Marine Protected Areas to be highly protected by 2030. 
• Plastic Pollution - To solve the plastic pollution crisis, we need to reduce the production and consumption of non-essential single-use, throwaway and polluting plastic, and build a circular economy that ensures plastics are designed to be reused and repaired. Our ambition is to end single-use plastic pollution on UK beaches by 2030.

Empty Kitchen Full Hearts

Another charity we’ve been involved this year has been Empty Kitchen Full Hearts. We were asked to provide the charity with lunchboxes so they could test a reusable scheme for their meals they provide in the local community. We were delighted to get involved and hope two help them continue their goals of providing food to those in need without using so much plastic. Mike the charities founder has reported that contrary to what some people may have believed might happen. "We have had very little loss (of metal containers) from the system and they are returned and filled up again almost without fail. They are continuing to test it and hope to scale the reusable option to other hubs around the city. 

About Empty Kitchen Full Hearts

Empty Kitchens Full Hearts was founded as a Community Interest Company in April 2020 by a body of volunteers, most of whom were chefs and hospitality professionals who found themselves unable to work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As pandemic restrictions eased during 2021, it was recognised that many people receiving Empty Kitchens Full Hearts meals needed ongoing support, and a staff team was put in place to stabilise operations so that we could continue meal provision alongside the strong volunteer community. They were awarded charitable status in March 2022.

Since its inception, more than 1.8 million meals (314,896 meals in the year) - prepared using surplus “fit for purpose” food - have been cooked, packed, and delivered to people in need across Edinburgh by a community of volunteers. From the outset, Empty Kitchens Full Hearts values have been grounded in providing a service without judgement to anyone who needs it. Below is a link to their winter fundraiser:  https://emptykitchens.enthuse.com/cf/winter-appeal