Corporate involvement along the Water of Leith offers your team a chance to develop through interesting outdoor experiences and fun-packed meaningful activities, while investing in the community and helping to conserve Edinburgh’s most significant wildlife corridor. The river is home to a fantastic diversity of wildlife using both the river and its banks. Animals such as otters, kingfishers, dippers, herons, badgers, roe deer, bats, and a dozen species of fish, not to mention hundreds of different types of aquatic invertebrate’s, plants, wildflowers and trees are dependent on the Water of Leith Valley
On a yearly basis the Water of Leith Conservation Trust leads over 7,000 hours of practical conservation in the river and along the walkway to enhance and conserve it with a mixture of our own volunteers, corporate teams and community groups.
Depending on the season and river levels we offer a range of task options for your team to get involved in and we can cater for all ages, abilities, energy levels and budgets.
We offer three ways to get involved as corporate team:
Bespoke
We can run a bespoke conservation session allowing you to pick the time and location of the session where we’ll show off the special spots on the river and tailor the work to the group. To cover staff time, materials and insurance we charge £30 per person for a half day (min £300) and £60 per person for a full day (min £600) – details below
Join in
Up to five people from a workplace can just join in with one of our regular conservation mornings with the Water of Leith Trust volunteers. These normally happen between 10.30am – 1pm somewhere on the walkway and happen twice a week, we plan these a fortnight in advance. Contact us for more information.
Just do it
Keeping the river free of litter is one of our biggest challenges so we are always happy to loan litter pickers, high viz and gloves to groups that fancy lending a hand and doing their own clean, these are especially useful in the more urban areas. Contact us for more information.
On the Day
It’s easy for your team to get involved and make a noticeable difference as they’ll be working with one of our experienced members of staff who will lead the group and provide all the tools, equipment and materials necessary. We risk-assess all tasks, provide both health and safety briefings and tool talks for your staff to get involved and feel confident in the work they do. We are more than happy to do a site visit in advance to tailor the session to the group.
Benefits to you team
Working with The Water of Leith Conservation Trust on Edinburgh’s River gives your staff the chance to make a positive difference to a familiar local environment in which they live and work.
The outdoor experience is a perfect opportunity for individuals to work as a team in a totally different setting. Often friendships are formed both within the group as well as with the local community. Our experienced knowledgeable staff know the river and its ecology extremely well and can act as a wildlife guide throughout the day, as well as a task leader.
Conservation work can provide a great backdrop to staff training and development. This in turn can boost team morale, motivation, help with stress management and be a lot of fun. It’s an excellent opportunity to demonstrate through social media channels that your business has a commitment to corporate responsibility and climate change resilience by allowing your staff to work in their local outdoor environment strengthening biodiversity.
How much does it cost?
We charge for bespoke sessions to make our work sustainable and to cover the costs incurred. These include project planning and set up expenses, full risk-assessment and insurance, provision of tools, safety equipment and supervision by a trained and knowledgeable project leader. Minimum group size 10, maximum 75.
A fee recouping total costs will apply if a cancellation is made seven days or less before the date of the task.
In the case of severe weather, rescheduling without charge will apply
For further information, please contact our Conservation Team on 0131 455 7367 or drop us an email on [email protected]
The Water of Leith Conservation Trust works to conserve and enhance the river, its heritage and wildlife: The Trust promotes education and recreation through the Visitor Centre, and works with volunteers and community groups to deliver around 240 river clean-ups and habitat improvement tasks annually.
