BLOG: A new year’s message from Graham Duxbury, Groundwork’s UK Chief Executive
Graham Duxbury, Groundwork’s UK Chief Executive, envisions a new year of opportunity for practical change.
With the parties and fireworks behind us, many will be entering 2025 with a degree of trepidation. Storms and floods are a reminder of the need to prepare for increasingly disruptive climate impacts, while a spell of freezing temperatures coupled with news of yet more energy price rises will bring further distress to those already struggling to heat their homes. With war continuing to rage across the globe, a rising sense of anxiety and powerlessness is understandable.
This year all eyes will be on the Government as they attempt to translate their promises, missions and targets into delivery that will make us feel better – and better off. We had the usual pre-Christmas rush of announcements and documents, many of them designed to change ‘the system’: the way local government works; new planning priorities; changes to job centres, etc. This can all seem very technical and ‘managerial’, and the real test will be whether it helps us all feel more in control, and creates a better outlook for those people and places that are most vulnerable with least access to opportunity.
Our mission – as it has been for more than four decades – is to work within this changing context to bring about practical change, helping people create better places to live, improve their prospects and protect the planet.
Our New Year’s resolution is to build on innovation within our network and increase the scale and impact of successful programmes, ensuring communities everywhere have access to all the support we can offer. We want to grow our network of ‘green community hubs’, which provide places for people to volunteer their time but also access a wide range of services. We want to help more children and families through Wellies in the Woods, guided sessions that help build a connection with nature but also deliver important learning and development opportunities. We want to take our Communities Prepared programme to a national level – providing training to ensure more people are able to respond to extreme weather events and emergency situations. We want to help more people find work and develop their career in jobs that will be vital to our national goals around net zero and nature recovery – energy efficiency, recycling and reuse, biodiversity and land management.
We can’t do this without help. Whether you’re a long-term partner or a new supporter, whether you’re leading change in your community or helping us fund vital local projects, we look forward to working together in 2025 to help more people turn concern into commitment and anxiety into action.
Notes to editors
For more information please contact: media@groundwork.org.uk
About Groundwork
Groundwork is a federation of charities with a collective mission to take practical action to create a fair and green future in which people, places, and nature thrive. We support communities and businesses to build capacity and resilience in order to tackle hardship, achieve a just transition to net-zero and help nature recover in a way that reduces inequality and leads to healthier, happier lives for all: www.groundwork.org.uk