Annual Review 2024-25

Our new CEO, Andy Jasper, joined the Eden Project in September 2024 from the National Trust, where he was Director of Gardens and Parklands. This appointment sees Andy return to Eden, having previously spent 13 years as the project’s Head of Research and Evaluation, where he specialised in the Eden Project’s social and economic impact on Cornwall. After leaving Eden, he spent over a decade working on the transformation of garden visitor attractions in the UK and overseas. As Programme Director of RHS Garden Wisley, he led the planning and execution of an acclaimed multimillion-pound investment programme in the Royal Horticultural Society’s flagship garden. He also ran the garden through the pandemic years and oversaw the design and delivery of the Octavia Hill Garden, which was voted People’s Choice at the 2024 RHS Chelsea Flower Show. 

Planning permission for Eden Project Scotland has been granted by Dundee City Council following an intensive period of community engagement.

Eden Project Scotland will be a landmark development for the city, transforming the former gasworks site on East Dock Street into a beacon for regeneration and green tourism.

A film about Eden Project Scotland premiered at the beginning of the co-creation process and is now available to watch on our YouTube channel.

Volvo extended its partnership with Eden as our Official Electric Car Partner and Presenting Partner of the Eden Sessions. The fleet of nine fully electric XC40 cars continues to serve as the backbone of the Eden Project’s transport for staff and visitors, both around and beyond Cornwall. The cars are used by teams across the business, including operations, event staff, paramedics and, of course, throughout the Eden Sessions in the summer. Volvo is also supporting our Nature Connection’s early years programme, which includes Little Eden, and will allow us to double the number of early years sessions over the next year to 1,250 places.

In March, John Pye was appointed to lead the project’s transition into its delivery phase. The first official employee of Eden Project Morecambe Ltd, John will live in the town and will take the project to completion. He brings over 20 years of experience to the role, and for the past nine years, he led the development of the 63-hectare RHS Garden Bridgewater in Greater Manchester.

In January, Peter Jones was appointed as Eden’s new Director of Horticulture, leading on the strategic vision for horticulture, making it the centrepiece of our forthcoming 25th birthday celebrations in 2026 and ensuring it remains the star of the Eden Project show.

He has taken charge of Eden’s 50-strong horticulture team and will be directing the planting for the new Eden Projects planned for Morecambe and Dundee. He has joined Eden after 19 years at the RHS, most recently as Garden Manager for the Hardy Ornamental department at RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey.

Eden Dock, a new green oasis, was created at the heart of Canary Wharf with the help of the Eden Project. 

Eden Dock is a network of floating gardens and boardwalks populated with wading birds and other waterfowl, bees and eels, along with plant species rarely seen inside the M25. 

To mark the launch, Nature Rising, a living artwork with over 20 living figures made of ligustrum – a flowering shrub – has been dotted around the dock. The figures will become part of CWG’s permanent public art collection.

The Eden Project was invited by the British Embassies in Colombia and Mexico to lead a panel at COP 16 on how to attract investment to help fill the biodiversity funding gap, and recognising the rights of nature in the boardroom. 

The Education team worked with schools in Morecambe and the University of Lancaster to develop Resources from our Bay, a set of 130 educational resources for schools around Morecambe Bay. A hundred and twenty pupils from four primary schools participated in our Rhythm Makers workshops.

The Eden Education team supports three classes and the nursery at Sky Primary and Eden Project Nursery, delivering a holistic, nature-based curriculum that meets national standards. This year, they published their Nature Curriculum progression document, which featured in the Department for Education’s Climate in Education Snapshot in January 2025.

This year, 4,982 Eden resources were added to new free-to-access resources published to support teachers.

The Playful Green Planet project was launched this year. Led by the RSA in collaboration with Eden’s Education and Nature Connections Teams and Bath Spa University, the £200k project aims to bring nature-based children’s play to more urban areas

Following the launch of the Eden Project Wildflower Bank to create opportunities for habitat banking and attract more investment into our nature recovery activities, we began pilots in Cornwall and Eastbourne. 

The NWC also piloted a series of habitat creation and biodiversity enhancement techniques on local sustainable energy sites in collaboration with Foresight Natural Capital, Penrice House and Scottish Power.

The National Wildflower Centre assisted Foresight with its Nature Recovery Blueprint, designed to help land managers, developers and asset managers create more opportunities for nature on UK solar sites. Foresight celebrated the publication by planting 600 devil’s bit scabious (Succisa pratensis) at one of its solar sites in Cornwall with the NWC. Devil’s bit scabious is a vital source of food for the endangered marsh fritillary butterfly (Euphydryas aurinia).

The NWC collaborated with the Oliver Jeffers-led Power Plants projects pilot, helping to develop over 600 wildflower packs for local schools and communities in Northern Ireland.

The NWC produced a tonne of wildflower seed for the A30 link road project, helping to increase biodiversity on this locally important new access route. The seed was hand-collected, grown on, and harvested locally, involving local donor sites, communities, and contractors.

Eden is working with Natural England, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire City Council and the Ramblers to look at ways people can access and enjoy nature-rich spaces without harming nature. We’re looking at the issues on a national level, then trialling solutions to promote more responsible behaviours here at the Eden Project and at local nature reserves and SSSIs in Cornwall, including  Golitha Falls.

Our efforts to get people moving received a boost through a local pilot programme funded by Cornwall Council’s Active Travel Social Prescribing Fund. Walking routes to Eden were mapped, new signs featuring rights of way and more benches were installed to connect local people to our wider estate and make it easier to visit Eden on foot. 

One of the cohorts of veterans participating in our Defence Gardens Scheme worked against the clock to construct and plant a green wall for the Volvo stand at the Eden Project Sessions 2024.

The Nature Connections Team ran the first of a series of seasonal well-being days at Vounder Therapy Garden for NHS staff and patients. Sessions offered a variety of horticultural activities and nature-based crafts, such as natural dyeing and willow weaving, while lunch was harvested and prepared by participants. Sessions were also run for NHS staff and for patients undergoing or recovering from cancer treatment.

The Big Lunch once again kicked off a whole Month of Community in June 2024. Thirteen charities and initiatives, including Volunteers Week, Great Big Green Week and Neighbourhood Watch Week, offered a wide range of ways to celebrate everything that makes our communities great

At the Tamar Pub in Plymouth, communities planted seedlings and chatted over food – one of the many events hosted in pubs across the UK by Greene King, a new partner of The Big Lunch in 2024.

In 2024, organisers were invited to celebrate community and sustainability by making it the Greenest Big Lunch yet. From upcycled decorations to plant-based dishes, communities went above and beyond to hold planet-friendly events.

The Sutton Community Project, run by volunteers to reduce food waste and support lower-income households, hosted a multicultural feast for The Big Lunch, with dishes from Hong Kong, Ukraine, Brazil, and India, for over 200 attendees. And this fabulous cake!

In Llandrindod Wells, The Big Lunch was part of the Big Battle – a fun-packed day of team games and a boat race. Introduced last year by Fuelled by Cake and Llandrindod Community Events, it was a lively way for the community to connect.

In May 2024, the Eden Project presented a powerful and immersive new film by internationally acclaimed British artist and Turner Prize nominee Cornelia Parker. 

Inspired by the documentary series Seven Up!, THE FUTURE (Sixes and Sevens) explores the future through the eyes of primary school children, who candidly share their hopes for the future across two screens. Visitors were also invited to share their own hopes on a dedicated board once they’d seen the film.

Peter Randall-Page’s iconic Seed, created from a single piece of Cornish granite, has graced the Core at Eden since 2007. This year, he produced a limited edition of Seed using another material that is intrinsically linked to Cornwall’s mining history: tin.

Made from sea-foraged tin gleaned from a Cornish beach, this limited edition of 30 draws on a mining tradition that goes back hundreds if not thousands of years. Eden worked on the piece with Peter and Blue Hill Tin at Porth in Cornwall. At 23cm tall, it is as close a replica to the original as possible – albeit without the time-worn surface. 

A rooftop solar PV array with a total system capacity of 140 kW was installed at Growing Point. The system has the potential to meet up to 4% of the Eden Project site’s electricity demand and avoid approximately 32 tCO₂e per year in Scope 2 emissions. Read more here.

In partnership with Re:Universe and Circular & Co, the new return-deposit coffee cup scheme achieved an impressive 88% return rate in 2024/25, with most months now exceeding 90%. The initiative has significantly reduced waste and the carbon impact associated with around 35,000 takeaway coffee servings. Find out more.

An ESOS energy audit action plan was submitted, and 14 energy conservation measures were completed in 2024/25. These included lighting replacements and improvements to building controls, resulting in annual energy savings of 38,838 kWh. While less high-profile, these improvements are equally important and contribute meaningfully to our ongoing carbon reduction efforts. The action plan is now publicly available, as required under the government’s ESOS scheme.