New partnership with Trees for Cities

In the framework of our CSR (corporate social responsibility) programme, we've partnered with urban tree-planting charity, Trees for Cities. The new partnership will support tree planting projects in four UK locations close to key Europcar locations – in London, Glasgow, Cardiff and Birmingham – working with local councils and includes opportunities for our employees to volunteer and plant trees themselves.

The first tree planting day took place at Forest Road Playing Fields, Hainault, Ilford on 31st October, with a dedicated Europcar team planting 280 whips (saplings) for new woodland creation.

Trees for Cities has worked with local communities, schools and businesses for over 30 years to establish more than 1.8 million trees in towns and cities across the UK and around the world. The charity’s vision, ‘Urban Trees for All, By All,’ seeks to harness the power of mass community participation to enable and inspire direct local impact on a national and global scale. As dedicated tree-planting experts, Trees for Cities has a 95% survival rate for standard trees thriving after three years, and an 85% establishment rate of saplings thriving just one year after planting.

Forest Road Playing Fields is a large site of approximately 46ha in Hainault with low estimated canopy cover of 8%. The aim is to plant up to 4500 whips for woodland creation. It is part of a wider project within the wider proximity of Hainault Forest Country Park with a further 1500 whips planned for planting.

“As a carbon-emitting business, we are continually seeking new ways to help balance and counteract some of those emissions and we were inspired by the Trees for Cities vision,” commented our CSR Manager, Karen Moule .

“Focusing on urban areas that suffer from reduced tree canopy cover, our planting projects will contribute to improving air quality and people's wellbeing, attracting wildlife and keeping the areas cooler in hot weather. We were excited to get started with our first ‘Woodland Creation’ day in Ilford last week.”

The best time to plant trees is during their dormant months between October and March. Our teams of employees will plant hundreds of new trees across all four locations throughout the planting season.

Catherine Horan, Fundraising Director at Trees for Cities commented: “We are proud to be partnering with Europcar Mobility Group UK for the upcoming planting season of 2024/2025. Our vision is to improve people’s lives by planting trees in towns and cities and we cannot do this without the support of communities and sustainability-focused businesses such as Europcar.

“Together we will deliver transformational change in the chosen cities, connecting urban populations with nature, cultivating lasting change and delivering the multiple benefits of trees in cities for today and future generations.”

Find out more about Trees for Cities, and to support their work here.