Bringing communities and nature together: Great Big Green Week 2026

For those working in conservation, land management, countryside ranger services or local authority green spaces, community engagement is rarely straightforward. Budgets are tight, audiences are fragmented and the gap between public concern for nature and meaningful participation can be frustratingly wide. Great Big Green Week is the only mass moment for nature and climate in the UK that consistently bridges that gap, and the results at scale are striking.

Now in its fifth year, Great Big Green Week is taking place in 2026 from 6 to 14 June. It is the UK's biggest celebration of community action for climate and nature, facilitated by The Climate Coalition, the UK's largest alliance of organisations working on these issues, bringing together more than 130 member organisations with a combined supporter base of over 20 million people across the UK. Members include the National Trust, the RSPB, the Women's Institute, Oxfam and many of the Wildlife Trusts, alongside hundreds of smaller community groups and organisations including CJS.

What actually happens during the week?

In 2025, more than 5,800 events took place across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, actively engaging over 1.2 million people. Events ranged from guided nature walks and habitat restoration days to repair cafés, community growing projects, school activities and local conservation volunteering. Over 3,000 of those events were organised by local community groups, many of whom were not traditional conservation organisations but community associations, faith groups, schools and local businesses choosing to engage their communities with nature and climate for the first time.

For professionals in the countryside and conservation sectors, that breadth of participation matters. Great Big Green Week reaches people and places that sector organisations often struggle to connect with. Crucially, one third of participants in 2025 had never previously taken part in a climate or nature event. These were ordinary members of the public responding to a familiar, accessible and locally meaningful invitation to get involved, many of whom went on to say they wanted to take further action after the week ended.

Why it is relevant to countryside and conservation professionals

The week provides a ready-made framework for organisations to engage their local communities in conservation activity. National Trust sites ran events at over 100 locations in 2025. Wildlife Trusts, conservation charities and local authority countryside teams used the week to run guided walks, species recording sessions, habitat management volunteering days and public talks that connected local conservation priorities to a national moment.

For those managing countryside sites, ranger services or nature reserves, Great Big Green Week offers a practical opportunity to open their work to new audiences, recruit volunteers, build relationships with schools and community groups, and demonstrate the social value of the spaces they manage. Local authority teams in particular have used the week to show elected members and communities that green spaces are active community assets, not simply maintenance liabilities.

The non-party-political positioning of the week matters too. In a landscape where climate and nature issues are increasingly contested politically, Great Big Green Week deliberately avoids policy language and focuses instead on what communities are already doing and why it matters locally. That makes it a comfortable platform for statutory and charitable organisations alike to engage the public without stepping into political territory.

This year's theme: together for good

The 2026 theme is Together for Good, a deliberately open frame that communities and organisations can interpret and apply in ways that reflect their own priorities. A countryside ranger team might organise a community volunteer day restoring a wetland, framed as an opportunity to come together for the good of local wildlife. A conservation charity might open a nature reserve for a community celebration that introduces new visitors to the site and its work. A local authority parks team might partner with local schools or community groups to deliver activities in green spaces that would otherwise receive little public attention.

The flexibility of the theme is one of the week's practical strengths. Organisations do not need to design something entirely new. They can register existing programmes, volunteer days, guided walks and community events as part of Great Big Green Week, connecting local activity to a national moment and benefiting from the additional visibility and resources the week provides.

Getting involved

Registering an event is free and straightforward. Organisations gain access to a range of promotional resources, and events appear on the Great Big Green Week map, making them discoverable to local communities looking for ways to take part. For organisations with existing community programmes, the week amplifies work already being done and opens it up to new audiences who might not otherwise have found them.

With Great Big Green Week taking place from 6 to 14 June 2026, now is a good time for countryside and conservation organisations to think about what they could offer their local communities during the week, however large or small.

Find out more and register your event at greatbiggreenweek.com

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