A Prescription for Nature

We know that when people feel emotionally connected to nature, they’re more likely to care for it, and take action to restore it. The scientific evidence also shows us that connecting to nature can do wonders for our mental health. So, by encouraging people to make a habit of spending time with nature they could get a great boost to their wellbeing, and in the process grow a closer relationship with our natural world - possibly even doing things to help protect it.

The campaign has a simple ask: we want everyone to get a daily dose of nature. To make this easy for anyone to do we came up with ‘prescriptions’ - activity bundles – for a range of accessibility and environmental circumstances. To spread the message, we aired a primetime TV advert featuring well known GP, Dr Sara Kayat, as well as enlisting the free support of celebrities including Joe Wicks, Geri Halliwell-Horner, Sir Andy Murray and many more. The aim was to reach a mass public audience, many of whom might not yet be engaged with environmental issues. While the campaign is ongoing, autumn’s launch phase saw extraordinary results, with 625 million opportunities to see, more than half a million engagements with the campaign and nearly 70 thousand actions taken by the UK public. A YouGov survey showed a 4% increase in people feeling connected to nature between September and November last year. We’re playing a long game, and signs are it’s working.