The Royal Society of Arts has today announced that The Royal Parks charity has become part of their Playful Green Planet network. After The Guardian published a report this month naming Britain as one of the ‘least nature-connected’ countries in the world, the Playful Green Planet network is a vital initiative dedicated to forging a connection between young people with the natural environment.
Playful Green Planet was established by the Royal Society of Arts in 2022 to transform green spaces across the UK into ecologically thriving outdoor classrooms that grow children’s ecological citizenship.
The Playful Green Planet network fosters a deep connection between children and nature from an early age, taking underutilised outdoor spaces and transforming them into vibrant environments, where children directly interact with nature. This experience improves children’s understanding of natural environments and benefits their intellectual and social development.
After a successful pilot year, the network has been expanded to include The Royal Parks, the charity that manages some of London’s most famous green spaces. Playful Green Planet’s pilot year saw the development of two sites in Dundee and Hull; and after 9 months, the network had connected 998 children to nature and unlocked 6,521 hours spent playing in nature and has recorded biodiversity observations for 70 unique UK species.
The Royal Parks charity has been supporting early years development through its learning centres, Discovery Days events, and its Play in the Park project already successfully running in Greenwich Park, The Regent’s Park and Kensington Gardens. As the charity now joins the Playful Green Planet network, The RSA will provide peer-to-peer learning to support their work across the Royal Parks and at their unique, eco-friendly learning centres in Hyde and Greenwich Parks.
Joanna Choukeir, Director of Design and Innovation at the RSA, said: “Playful Green Planet embodies our commitment to a better future for all. We’ve seen through our pilot projects a growing body of evidence how outdoor play in co-created green spaces improves connection and care for nature in children. It is one of the most beneficial long-term cures to the climate crisis. We have also seen how access to these important spaces improves children’s development, wellbeing, immunity and creativity. We are thrilled to welcome The Royal Parks as a Playful Green Planet steward, we are looking forward to working together to improve and celebrate access to nature for children and young people across London.”
Ledy Leyssen, Head of Learning at The Royal Parks, said: “We are honoured to be a steward of the Playful Green Planet initiative and to learn from and alongside other stewards who are providing nature-based play opportunities for their communities. As a charity we are proud to provide opportunities for children to play outdoors in nature, and to learn about and connect with nature through our Play in the Park project, our learning centres, Discovery Days and our outreach work with schools and local communities.”
The RSA, in partnership with the Eden Project and Bath Spa University, has been developing Playful Green Planet since 2022, supported by an advisory committee of world-renown experts.
We began by testing this approach with two pilots in Dundee and Hull, with over 1000 children benefiting and over 70 local partnerships formed in the first six months. Children helped co-design outdoor play and learning experiences, transforming underused spaces to embed nature play into community life.
In 2025, we launched the Playful Green Planet Network, a growing national movement of place-based organisations that already work with children, taking the lead in reimagining local green spaces through nature-based play. The Network already includes Redbridge Council’s parks, Cody Dock in Newham, and Electric Daisy in Derby.
The Royal Parks is the charity which manages, protects, and improves the parks in an exemplary and sustainable manner so that everyone, now and in the future, has the opportunity to enjoy their natural and historic environments.
The charity looks after eight of London’s finest open spaces: Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, St James’s Park, The Green Park, The Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill, Greenwich Park, Richmond Park, and Bushy Park. It also manages other important open spaces in the capital, including Brompton Cemetery and Victoria Tower Gardens.
It costs around £75m a year to manage the parks. The charity raises around 85 percent of its income independently with the remaining 15 percent funded by Government.
For further information please visit: www.royalparks.org.uk and follow The Royal Parks on, Facebook.com/TheRoyalParksLondon and Instagram.com/TheRoyalParks.
