Ella’s Kitchen teams up with RSPB for British nature conservation and restoration

Image: RSPB

The B Corp baby and children’s food brand has forged a long-term partnership with the charity with the aim of conserving and restoring the habitats through to 2030. A focus on wildflowers has been chosen given that 97% of wildflower meadows in the UK, by area size, have been lost within the past century.

Restoration projects will be delivered in Lancashire and Otmoor, with the former focusing on species-rich grassland and the former focusing on wildflower meadows. These locations will be habitats for species including birds, bees and orchids.

Elsewhere, habitat conservation schemes spearheaded by the RSPB in Scotland will be supported by Ella’s Kitchen. These include a project at Loch Lomond to converve one of the UK’s last remaining wildflower-rich grasslands, rich in biodiversity including an array of birds and insects.

It is hoped that the partnership will feed into the UK’s commitment to conserve 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030. This commitment was made through the UN’s international biodiversity treaty, which was ratified in December 2022 and is supported by almost 200 countries. Its overarching vision is ending nature destruction and degradation this decade, plus bringing about restoration at pace and scale thereafter.

Ministers were warned last month that the UK only has a “slim chance” of meeting this ’30 x 30′ goal without unprecedented action. The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world and many of its designated protected areas have degraded significantly since the 1970s.

As well as supporting RSPB financially with conservation and restoration, Ella’s Kitchen will draw on the NGO’s knowledge base. Staff will work with experts at the charity to learn how nature can be further embedded in the business’s strategy.

Additionally, the RSPB and Ella’s Kitchen will run joint communications campaigns and collectively provide resources to families to help children connect with nature and participate in conservation and restoration themselves.

RSPB chief executive Beccy Speight said: “Nature is facing many threats, from the destruction of habitats to pesticide use and climate change, resulting in problems like the loss of pollinators. But it’s not too late to intervene.

“Ella’s Kitchen is facing these challenges through targeted action in this new partnership that is both good for nature and good for people.

“Businesses have a crucial role to play in addressing the dual nature and climate crises, and partnerships like this that seek to restore and sustainably manage ecosystems and restore the biodiversity that we all rely on are so important.”

The partnership news comes as environment ministers prepare to convene for two critical meetings on nature in Canada. Former world leaders have written to them ahead of the meetings, imploring a strong agreement on nature financing with a focus on Indigenous communities that conserve the majority of the world’s biodiversity.