Stately home near Carnforth helps companies build a greener future

The 450 acres of woodland at Leighton Hall near Carnforth makes up 10% of the Silverdale & Arnside AONB, making sustainability and community responsibility vital for every generation of Leighton’s historic Gillow furniture making dynasty.

This year's winners of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Award at the respected Red Rose Awards, the team are using their experience and expertise to host hands-on environmental conservation days.

“Winning the award was an amazing endorsement of the team’s hard work, including re-establishing a woodland by planting 30,000 trees, developing a bulb planting programme for pollinators and endangered butterflies and establishing a forest school for pre-school children,” said estate manager Lucy Arthurs.

“Businesses started contacting us with ESG queries, from simply what it is, to help bringing their budding ESG strategy to reality. We recognised the opportunity for a dual win/win - helping companies with their environmental goals, and at the same time creating essential habitat for our local endangered native wildlife like bees, insects, beetles, hedgehogs and mice.”

Lucy and her team curated team-building days with a difference: led by the estate foreman, companies get really hands-on in nature, working together to build a bug hotel which is then placed into sponsored pollinator pyramids linking up an ambitious woodland wildlife-supporting ecosystem.

“The benefits are manifold,” said Lucy. “Participants take home new skills, friendships. knowledge and are encouraged to develop their own ESG goals. They also leave behind a lasting legacy to the core foundation of ESG: an environmentally sustainable haven for wildlife which the local community can enjoy, too.

“Even in straitened times, people absolutely want to do their bit, and we’re in a position to assist, by helping companies recognise their corporate responsibility to the countryside and step away from so-called “Green Washing”.

“Corporate conservation days help employees to make affordable green choices, positively impacting nature, our communities, and the planet, as well as making a real difference in creating a sustainable environment.”