Social Sustainability: Environment
We work with our communities to tackle climate change, protect and enhance biodiversity, strengthen biosecurity, and drive circular economy solutions, ensuring everything we do leads to a cleaner, healthier and less carbon-intensive environment.
Through Forests With Impact, we’re growing UK-grown trees to enhance biodiversity and strengthen biosecurity. Alongside this, we restore natural habitats, revitalise green spaces through initiatives like the Big Green Clean-up, and support circular economy projects that reduce waste and extend the life of resources – all focused on creating sustainable change.
By combining our expertise with the passion of our people, the needs of our local communities, and partnerships with our customers, we deliver sustainable environmental solutions that benefit people and places for the long term.
Net Zero & Rehabilitation - Forests with Impact
As a founding and national partner of the multiple award-winning Forests With Impact programme, we support their work to grow UK-grown trees that contribute to the creation and restoration of forests across the UK, while providing life-changing opportunities for prisoners and prison leavers.
This innovative social enterprise establishes commercial tree nurseries inside UK prisons, employing seven prisoners at HMP Haverigg and providing paid employment, industry-recognised training, and clear pathways into work on release. Together, they are currently growing around 500,000 trees across eight native varieties, tackling the national tree shortage while protecting biodiversity and strengthening biosecurity by reducing reliance on imported saplings. By equipping people with valuable skills, the programme supports rehabilitation and successful reintegration into society - and we’re proud to play our part in helping make that possible.
Since its launch in 2023, Forests With Impact has expanded from HMP Haverigg in Cumbria to new sites in development at HMP Fosse Way, with a waiting list of other prisons across the country keen to adopt the model. Their work directly supports the UK’s legally binding target to plant 30,000 hectares of woodland per year, tackles the national tree shortage, protects and enhances biodiversity, strengthens biosecurity by reducing reliance on imported saplings, and creates a skilled workforce for the future.
Sunbelt Rentals has supported Forests With Impact from the very beginning, donating £26,000 in 2023 to match fund the Forestry Commission’s contribution to establish the first commercial tree nursery at HMP Haverigg, contributing thousands of hours of expert volunteering to lead the programme design, setup and operations, and providing equipment and technical support to help the programme grow. In 2025, we donated £40,000 to fund a new Tree Nursery Development Manager apprentice, a prison leaver and former member of the HMP Haverigg growing team, and to purchase seed trays to increase tree growing capacity, along with £14,000 from our Apprenticeship Levy to fully fund the training element of the role. Together these investments enhance the programme’s long-term sustainability, capacity, quality, and ability to expand to more prisons across the UK.
The impact is threefold:
1. Environment: Growing indigenous trees to tackle climate change, increase biodiversity, and strengthen biosecurity, while reducing reliance on imported saplings.
2. Society: Supporting rehabilitation by providing skills, training, and sustainable employment opportunities for prisoners and prison leavers to help them succeed on release.
3. Economy: Reinvesting surplus revenue from tree nurseries to help grow and strengthen local communities surrounding the prisons.
By contributing leadership, expert guidance, volunteering and resources, we’re proud to help shape the future of Forests With Impact, creating hope, pride and purpose for prisoners and strengthening the communities around them.
Cyclical Economy – Rebuild
Through our long-term partnership with Rebuild Site CIC, we’re tackling one of the construction industry’s biggest challenges - waste reduction. The Rebuild programme gives a second life to redundant or surplus materials from building sites, redirecting them to community projects, charities, and families on low incomes. By reusing materials that would otherwise go to landfill, we’re reducing carbon emissions, cutting waste, and supporting communities who need it most.
According to Rebuild, since launching in 2022, they have diverted over 10,000 tonnes of usable materials from landfill, saving more than 12,000 tonnes of embedded carbon, and supported 211 community organisations with free or low-cost materials worth around £150,000, and their work has reached an estimated 20,000 community members while keeping valuable resources in circulation for longer.
In 2025, we donated £20,000 to help Rebuild move into a larger premises in Carlisle, creating a public-facing construction reuse hub with essential facilities including a reuse shop, office space, accessible tolet block, and a community kitchen. This new site is designed as a demonstrator hub, showcasing how circular economy models in construction can work in practice and be replicated by others. The investment will expand capacity, allowing more materials to be reclaimed, stored, and redistributed, and enabling more community workshops, training sessions, and volunteer opportunities.
The programme delivers hands-on workshops and skills training, engaging over 200 people in its first year, and continues to grow with the help of Sunbelt Rentals teammates, who have donated hundreds of volunteer hours. Together, we’re inspiring others to adopt circular economy models in construction.
Environmental Stewardship – The Big Green Clean-Up
The Big Green Clean-up is the first of our new Plug & Play Community Playbooks, designed to make it simple for Sunbelt Rentals teammates to lead impactful volunteering projects in their local communities.
Our pilot event in 2025 took place across Redcar Beach and the town centre, in partnership with Marske Litter Action. Twenty-six teammates used their paid volunteer days to clear litter from the coastline, streets, and green spaces, collecting over 20 bags of rubbish including harmful plastics such as nurdles. The project not only created cleaner, safer public spaces but also strengthened community pride and local partnerships.
The vision for the Big Green Clean-up is to empower every Sunbelt Rentals teammate to run a clean-up in their local community at any time of year, while also aligning with the national Great British Spring Clean. This means our people can take action locally whenever it matters most, while contributing to a collective movement across the UK.
To ensure the initiative can be replicated nationwide, we developed the Big Green Clean-up Playbook – a practical, step-by-step guide that gives every teammate the confidence and tools to deliver their own project, supported by our Regional Social Sustainability Committees and central Social Sustainability Team.
Our 2026 Great British Spring Clean initiative brought together 75+ teammates across eight regions, from Croydon to Dundee. Using paid volunteer days, colleagues partnered with local organisations to clear streets, green spaces and public areas, collecting over 255 bags of litter - more than double the original target of 100. The initiative delivered immediate environmental improvements and lasting community benefit, with equipment donated to a primary school in Dundee and community partners in the South West & Wales and the Midlands.
The impact is threefold:
• Environment: Cleaner, safer beaches, town centres and green spaces, reduced plastic pollution, and biodiversity protection.
• Society: Stronger community pride and partnerships with groups like Marske Litter Action.
• Economy: Investment in community infrastructure that enables ongoing volunteer action, while supporting customer social value commitments.
By setting the standard for all future Playbooks, the Big Green Clean-up shows how small actions can add up to big impact, enabling our people to transform places, spaces and lives.