Highlights
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The Big Jubilee Lunch
The Eden Project was an official partner of Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
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£50m Funding for Eden Project Morecambe
The Eden Project was awarded £50m in the UK government’s Levelling Up Fund towards building Eden Project Morecambe in Lancashire.
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Geothermal Plant Nursery
Construction started on our state-of-the-art geothermally heated plant nursery complex, Growing Point.
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RHS Chelsea Gold Win for Peatland Bog
The Eden Project and Dalefoot Composts won a gold medal at RHS Chelsea for an exhibit highlighting the critical importance of UK peatlands to climate and urging gardeners to ditch peat.
In January 2023, the Eden Project was awarded £50m from the government's Levelling Up Fund towards the creation of Eden Project Morecambe.
Reclaim: inspirational talks, creative journaling workshops, music and a vintage clothes sale were among the activities at the Eden Project’s first-ever wellness weekend in January 2023.
Military veterans facing mental health struggles were invited to take part in new nature-based therapy programmes at Vounder Farm in partnership with the Defence Gardens Scheme.
Growing Point, Eden's new geothermally heated plant nursery began construction.
The Eden Project made Newsweek’s 2022 list of top 100 most-lovedworkplaces.
Eden apprentices created a vibrant network of Buzz Stops in nearby communities to bring plant life and pollinators to bus stops as part of the Create a Buzz programme funded by Garfield Weston.
A new Costa Rican Eco Lodge was installed in the Rainforest Biome to bring to life the country’s commitment to ecotourism and conservation.
September saw the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow pitch up at Eden along with a very special guest.
In 2022, the Soil Association’s Out to Lunch campaign, which ratesfamily-friendly food offerings at visitor attractions,awarded Eden Project the top spot for the second time.
Learning
Education is at the heart of what we do at Eden. We offer learning opportunities from preschool to degree level and beyond to connect people of all ages with the natural world and help them to understand their place within it. We also provide leadership programmes for businesses and community training for people who want to roll up their sleeves and make a difference.
Learning in numbers
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25,327 learners at Eden from preschool to university
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548 sessions taught at Eden
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120 sessions delivered online
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42 different workshops on offer from early years to A-level
Learning Highlights
Eden's first school opened
In September 2022, 15 Reception and 7 Nursery children became the first ever pupils of Sky Primary and Eden Project Nursery, which will grow to over 230 early years and primary children when the school relocates to its permanent home in West Carclaze Garden Village. Nature, sustainability and learning outdoors are at the heart of the new school’s ethos.
Paradise Pastures
Our Schools Team launcheda new series of free science lesson plans for teachers designed to go beyond the classroom and inspire children to connect with nature in their school grounds. The lessons, designed for the upper end of Key Stage 2, respond to DfE’s plans, announced at COP26, to introduce measures that enhance climate change education for children.
Early Career Teacher Weekender
There is a national crisis in the teaching profession: 25% of Early Career Teachers (ECTs) quit within the first three years. In response, our Schools Team launched the ECT Eden Project Weekender, a 3-day residential course designed to help ECTs rediscover through reflection, collaboration and adventure why they became teachers in the first place.
Florence Nightingale Foundation
HotHouse, the Eden Project’s creative leadership programme, partnered with The Florence Nightingale Foundation to work with NHS Senior Nurses and Midwives.
They have developed three new programmes covering sustainability, health and well-being, including a three-night retreat for Florence Nightingale Foundation Scholarship holders.
Nature Recovery and Nature Connection Programmes
Eden’s nature recovery programmes deliver benefits to people and nature. Our therapeutic horticulture programmes provide pathways for people to find comfort and pleasure in nature, often working in conjunction with the National Wildflower Centre’s biodiversity initiatives.
Outreach slice
The National Wildflower Centre
The National Wildflower Centre brought people closer to nature by providing new wildflower habitats in urban areas across the UK, including Morecambe, Manchester, Liverpool, Lancaster University, and Dundee.
Therapeutic horticulture
Eden’s therapeutic horticulture programme supported nature recovery by propagating and planting devil’s bit scabious populations on site with veterans from the Defence Gardens Scheme in collaboration with the National Wildflower Centre. These native wildflowers are the main food plant for the marsh fritillary butterfly, a vulnerable species with high conservation status.
Nature-based corporate partnerships
We started two new corporate partnerships with Foresight and Canary Wharf, working with these significant landowners and managers to investigate and instigate new ways to encourage nature recovery and nature connection through their estates and investment portfolios.
Better health and wellbeing
We continued to develop our outreach programme, creating a strong year-round programme of activities for local families, individuals and groups of all ages that make the most of the whole Eden site, including our first baby yoga sessions to support and connect new parents.
Communities
The range and scale of the challenges the world faces today are intimidating, but it is our belief that strong communities have an important part to play in overcoming them. We work nationally and internationally to bring people together through campaigns like The Big Lunch.
The Big Lunch's Impact
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17.2m took part in The Big Lunch and The Big Jubilee Lunch 2022.
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79% of Big Lunch attendees now feel a stronger sense of community.
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11.7m said The Big Lunch made them feel less lonely.
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£22.2m raised at Big Lunch events – 75% went to local causes or charities.
The Big Jubilee Lunch 2022
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The Big Lunch was the official partner of Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
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Over 200,000 community events, big and small, are estimated to have taken place bringing together around 17 million people.
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Morecambe Promenade hosted the longest Big Jubilee Lunch in the UK, stretching at least 2.5km with over 5,000 people taking part.
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To mark the historic occasion, entry to the Eden Project was free over the Platinum Jubilee weekend, so that visitors could celebrate together, enjoying an array of special activities and entertainment, as well as a Big Jubilee Lunch.
Regenerative Sustainability
Restoring nature
Five hundred trees were planted on Eden's Outer Estate to repair gaps in ancient Cornish hedges dating back to 1600s.
Sustainable transport
Twenty new charging points were added to our car parks in August 2022. There were 1,832 EV charging sessions this year, avoiding the equivalent of 3.5 tCO2e* in transport emissions.
Zero waste to landfill in 2022/23
Eden sent zero waste to landfill, and our recycling rate increased from 53% last year to 73% in 2022/23.
Carbon reduction on target.
Total carbon emissions across scopes 1, 2 and 3 were reduced by 20% compared to the baseline set in 2019/20, keeping us on track with the required target reduction.Read the report.
tCO2e
*tCO2e means tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent gases. It’s a way of standardising the measurement of different greenhouse gas emissions. Excess CO2 in the atmosphere is driving climate change, but there are other GHGs (like methane) that have the same effect.
Arts
The Eden Project offers emerging and established artists transformative opportunities to provoke action and inspire hope.
Art
Pollinator Pathmaker
Spring 2022 saw the installation ofAlexandraDaisy Ginsberg'sPollinator Pathmaker,a new garden designed, planted and optimised for pollinators’ tastes, using a specially created algorithm and curated palette of plants. Pollinator Pathmakerwas commissioned by the Eden Project and funded by the Garfield Weston Foundation as part of Create a Buzz. Additional funding supporters include the Gaia Art Foundation and collaborators Google Arts & Culture.You can plan your own at pollinator.art
Super Natural
Our Super Natural exhibition looked at humankind’s ever-evolving understanding of ourselves as a part of the natural world and the systems that inform our varying perspectives. Whether through senses and signals or cycles of carbon, oxygen and water, invisible threads connect a complex, dynamic web of life – and we are all a part of this web.
First Came the Landscape
Commissioned as part of the Super Natural exhibition at Eden, Ingela Ihrman’s First Came the Landscape is a giant stick skeleton made from parts of a single beech tree brought down by Storm Eunice in 2022. The skeleton reposes in a quiet corner of the Eden estate, where it will slowly break down and return to the soil.
Financial Reports
Eden Trust financial summary on the Charity Commission website.
Donors
- James Arnell
- Geoffrey Austin
- Melville Carrie
- Craig Davidson
- Jane Hartley
- Kevin Havelock
- Keric Morris
- Daniel Nelson-Smith
- Malcolm Parsons
- Niraj Sudra
- The Graham and Mary Stacy Trust
- The James Inglis Testamentary Trust
- House of Hearst
In addition, we received generous donations from individuals who wish to remain anonymous.
British contemporary artist Yvonne Coomber created a unique work of art inspired by Eden’s signature wildflower mix and donated a hand-embellished print for Eden to auction in aid of the National Wildflower Centre.
We have 13,762 wonderful Members and regular donors who support our mission.
Funders
- Pears Foundation
- Foresight Group
- Good Inc.
- Defence Gardens Scheme
- Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund (Environment Agency/DEFRA)
- BHP
- Anglo American
- The Julia and Hans Rausing Trust
- Heritage Lottery Fund
- Network for Social Change
- Berggruen Institute
- Groundwork
- Veterans UK
- Cornwall Council
- Canary Wharf Group
Regenerative Sustainability Reporting
Eden Project Total Carbon Footprint 2022/23 report.
Volunteers
We have a regular core of 120 volunteers who support us weekly over a wide range of activities and teams. In addition, another 80-100 volunteers join us through a year for shorter periods of time, either for a specific activity or a shorter volunteering need (such as Eden Sessions or Eden Marathon). Over the course of the 2022/23 year, our volunteers gave us more than 12,000 hours of their valuable time. Without them, we could not have offered the breadth of activities that we do.Our biggest areas for volunteering are theAccess Team, Horticulture and Social Prescribing.
Volunteer at Eden.