Mitie to boost biodiversity by becoming Plantlife Corporate Patron

• Mitie has become a Corporate Patron of Plantlife, committing to work alongside the conservation charity to improve the UK’s biodiversity
• Plantlife will share the latest best practice and techniques to support biodiversity and pollinators for Mitie to deliver and share with its customers

Mitie Landscapes has become a Corporate Patron of British Conservation Charity, Plantlife, as part of its commitment to help support biodiversity across the UK. Mitie is Plantlife’s first Patron in the facilities management industry.

As one of the UK’s leading landscapes providers, Mitie will be working with Plantlife to support its evidence-based approach to conservation. This will include sharing Plantlife’s conservation and biodiversity best practice with Mitie’s clients, as well as trialling techniques and equipment that will encourage more wildflowers and pollinators to flourish. Mitie’s Landscapes team will also be able to access training and resources to learn about how they can further support biodiversity in their day-to-day roles, kicking-off with training on installing and maintaining meadows.

Mitie’s commitment to become a Corporate Patron follows its previous support for the ‘No Mow May campaign’. As part of the campaign Mitie and its customers, covering some 50 sites across the UK, committed to not mowing their grass for the entire month of May to create more attractive environments for pollinators and encouraging biodiversity. The activity resulted in approximately a 70% increase in flowers providing nectar for pollinating insects across sites. With many of these flowers having been able to seed, the number of flowers should increase again in May 2022.

The partnership is part of Mitie’s Plan Zero commitment to become net zero carbon for its operational emissions by 2025, with one of the organisation’s key commitments being to ‘Improve biodiversity at all of our sites using initiatives that help ecosystems flourish’. Mitie installed 100 bird boxes and 21 bat boxes in 2020, with a commitment to install a further 200 by the end of this year. It also planted 2,000m² of wildflower meadows – the equivalent to two Olympic sized swimming pools – in 2020.

Tim Howell, Managing Director, Landscapes, Mitie, said:

“With three quarters of the world’s food crops depending on pollinators, supporting biodiversity is no longer ‘a nice to have’ when it comes to sustainability. We must all do more to create environments that support these vital insects, flowers, plants and other wildlife. We’re proud to be working with Plantlife to bring its evidence-based approach to help Mitie and our clients support conservation.”

Ian Dunn, Chief Executive, Plantlife International, said:

“We are absolutely delighted to welcome Mitie as a Corporate Patron, thereby offering our highest level of corporate support. At Plantlife we are committed to working in partnership across all sectors of society to tackle the major challenges we face in addressing the climate and nature crises. With such a large land management portfolio combined with a very progressive approach to looking at how landscape management can offer present day solutions, Mitie are an ideal partner for us to be working with to the benefit of plant conservation right across the UK.”