Green Exercise Partnership - Scotland

The Green Exercise Partnership (GEP) is a funding scheme launched in 2007 by the Forestry Commission Scotland, Scot Nature (formerly Scottish Natural Heritage) and Health Scotland (part of the Scottish National Health Service) to finance projects that derive health benefits from exercise and time spent in nature. The programme is implemented all over Scotland, however many activities concentrate in major cities, such as Glasgow. Examples of the scheme include tree planting, active woodland management and pathway improvement. The target groups are local residents as well as hospital staff and patients. The programme supports turning policy into practice by making green health a key element of the government’s wider physical activity agenda. The GEP also serves as a good example of how to give citizens an active role in nature conservation and the implementation of nature-based solutions, and thus combines human well-being with ecological benefits.

Overview

Type of instrument:

Economic and fiscal instruments›Payments as rewards/for ecosystem services, subsidies, incentives

Challenges addressed

Ecologic connectivity
Soil quality
Water management (e.g. reuse)
Green space management (e.g. accessibility)
Watershed restoration/water quality
Drought and fire risk
Flood risk: pluvial and fluvial / soil permeability
Heat stress and heat island effect
Landslide risk
Air quality
Noise
Social cohesion
Social equity
Nature appropriation / stewardship
Reconnection to the biosphere / environmental education
Human health, comfort and well-being

Consideration of nature-based solutions:

The reasoning underlying the Green Exercise Partnership (GEP) is that landscape and access improvements can deliver a range of health benefits and at the same time enhance biodiversity and deliver more cost-effective estate management. The GEP work plan comprises two main strands: (1) Greening the National Health Service (NHS) estate (the greenspace around hospitals and healthcare centres that can be used by patients, staff, visitors and the local community) and (2) Mainstreaming green exercise. The main focus to date has been on co-ordinating the NHS Greenspace demonstration project as part of the Greening the NHS estate work, and this is very much seen as a positive step towards mainstreaming use of the outdoors in health interventions and social care by building partnerships within the NHS and raising awareness of the broader opportunities. In terms of awareness-raising and advocacy, the GEP aims at raising the profile and developing a better understanding of how to use natural assets for public health benefits. This includes influencing health policy and government strategy, making briefing material available to politicians and policy-makers, and producing online resources including case studies for practitioners.

Targeted (peri-)urban areas:

Parks and (semi)natural urban green areas

Allotments, community gardens or agricultural areas

Blue areas

Green areas for water management

Derelict areas

External building greens

Urban green space connected to grey infrastructure

Good practice characteristics:

Support multifunctional NBS

Potential to be replicated / upscaled

Innovative

Inclusivity

Governance

Government body/bodies

Initiating body:

Forestry Commission Scotland, Scot Nature (formerly Scottish Natural Heritage) and Health Scotland (part of the Scottish National Health Service (NHS))

Instrument design:

Details about how the instrument was designed:

The Green Exercise Partnership (GEP) in Scotland was founded in 2007 through a cooperation between the environmental organisations Scottish Natural Heritage (now NatureScot) and Forestry Commission Scotland with the national health promotion organisation NHS Health Scotland.

Instrument implementation:

Type of involvement:

Target groups of the Green Exercise Partnership (GEP) are local residents as well as hospital staff and patients. Community volunteers are involved in implementing the management of green spaces under the auspices of the project. Third sector and voluntary organisations are also supporting the GEP: Trellis – the national therapeutic gardening charity in Scotland – is helping establishing psychic and sensory gardens in hospital grounds. Ramblers Scotland, the national walking charity is promoting short local walking routes from a variety of community ‘hubs’ to encourage green exercise.

Type of non-governmental actors involved:

Implementation of NBS (e.g. with government funds)

Targeted actors:

Citizens or community groups (CBOs), NGOs

Financing

Sources of funding:

Public national budget

Budget:

Unknown

Details about instrument financing:

Funding comes from different government sources. Around €1.2 million (£1 million) was provided by the Scottish Government’s Health Finance Directorate, and around the same amount by the National Health Service Area Health Boards, most of which has come from endowment and legacy funds held in trust for staff and patient well-being projects.

Monitoring, evaluation and impacts

Achieved outcomes and impacts:

The Green Exercise Partnership (GEP) is a useful mechanism to combine health and environment benefits by making citizens active implementers of nature-based solutions. This is of particular relevance in Scotland, where citizens have a notoriously bad health record. The GEP also successfully communicated the benefits of ‘green exercise’ to government and health sector decision-makers. By raising awareness of the existing evidence base through research and evaluation, the GEP contributes to a culture change in the health sector to integrate green exercise into holistic health and prevention programmes.

Success factors and lessons learned:

The Green Exercise Partnership (GEP) is a unique instrument to advocate for the re-connection with nature through nature-based solutions for population-level health improvement. It showcases how holistic treatment and recovery programmes can benefit patients and the environment. An important factor was the hiring of both experts from the environment and health sectors to ensure that interlinkages are being identified and benefitted from. However, breaking down silos in the health sector and embracing more intersectoral work with the environment sector remains another challenge. Also, difficulties remain to put the GEP policy and the mainstreaming of green exercise into practice.

Sources and further information

References

List of references:

Scottish Forestry (2015). Green Exercise Partnership Briefing. Available at: https://forestry.gov.scot/publications/forests-and-people/woods-for-health/316-green-exercise-partnership-briefing (Accessed: 5 August 2022).

Europarc Federation (2022). Promoting ‘Green Health’ in Scotland. Available at: https://www.europarc.org/case-studies/promoting-green-health-in-scotland/ (Accessed: 5 August 2022).

Photos

@G.Elliott