Green Flag Award

The Green Flag Award® scheme recognises and rewards well managed parks and green spaces, setting the benchmark standard for the management of recreational outdoor spaces across the United Kingdom and around the world.

Purpose & aims

• To ensure that everybody has access to quality green and other open spaces, irrespective of where they live.
• To ensure that these spaces are appropriately managed and meet the needs of the communities that they serve.
• To establish standards of good management.
• To promote and share good practice amongst the green space sector.
• To recognise and reward the hard work of managers, staff and volunteers.

The benefits of winning a Green Flag Award®

Winning a Green Flag Award® brings with it a wealth of benefits, from the status of being affiliated with a prestigious awards programme through to tangible benefits such as boosting tourism and opening up revenue opportunities.

Showcasing the award

Each year, winners receive a Green Flag or Green Flag Community Award Flag. Those with Green Heritage Site Accreditation also receive a plaque to promote the status.

Enhanced pride and reputation

Holding a Green Flag Award® brings with it a vast amount of prestige. It is also an excellent example of civic achievement and provides the community with a great sense of civic pride.

Improvement

Winning a Green Flag Award® visibly demonstrates to the local community that a clear improvement has been made to a site.

Regeneration

Improving facilities at a park/green space and engaging more with the local community can have a knock on effect to the regeneration of an area.

Upgrading a site to achieve Green Flag status can, for example, bring about improvements to health and education, reduce crime and improve the general cleanliness of an area, whilst at the same time providing a boost to its profile.

Increasing tourism

Having a Green Flag Award® is an excellent attraction for tourism.

Research shows that people will make special trips to award-winning sites.

History

In 1997, when the first Green Flags were awarded, the green space sector in the United Kingdom was in a parlous state.  Decades of underfunding had left many once proud and beautiful historic city centre parks derelict, dangerous, no-go areas, and many other green spaces were neglected or barely maintained.  Experts with a shared interest in promoting natural spaces from a range of backgrounds came together in response to this decline.  The Scheme was directed by a Steering Group made up of individuals and representatives of larger organisations, led by Mark Davis of the Pesticides Action Network UK, who worked closely with the following individuals to develop and drive the Scheme forward in these early years: Nick Reeves - ILAM (The Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management) and then of CIWEM (The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management); Ken McAnespie - KMC Consultancy; George Barker - English Nature; Allan Tyler - independent consultant; and Liz Greenhalgh - independent consultant.

Their intention was to establish agreed standards of good management, to help to justify and evaluate funding, and to bring people back into the parks.  And it worked.  As the Standard became established, other green spaces began to apply for the Award, and now Green Flags fly over parks, cemeteries and crematoria, recreation grounds, canals, reservoirs, educational campuses, hospital grounds, housing estates, nature reserves and allotments.  There is no limit on the size of the site; they currently range from less than one hectare to thousands of hectares.

In 2008 the Scheme started to expand as pilot studies into countries outside the UK. In 2024 there are Green Flag Awards flying in 19 countries.