Celebrating 2 years of giving back
We’re proud to be part of the 1% for the Planet movement.
"1% for the Planet" means that we donate 1% of all Route One collection sales to environmental causes. Over the past 2 years our support has helped build skateparks for disadvantaged communities around the globe, protect the Pantanal wetlands in Brazil, and reforest the UK. To learn more about 1% for the Planet, check out this short video…
Make Life Skate Life
Make Life Skate is a charity on a mission to share skateboarding with the world. Since 2013, they have constructed 14 skateparks and developed free, accessible skate programs which allow previously under served communities to benefit from skateboarding.
Skateboarding has the power not only to improve physical and mental health, build self-esteem, and foster a sense of community, but also to offer a sustainable alternative form of transport to the fossil-fuel burners… so we’re proud to be working with Make Life Skate Life to spread its power far and wide.
MLSL supports local organizations, helping them independently manage their programs with their own means of creative development. This creates new skateparks, skate shops, skate schools, and local jobs. Today, over 5000 people, including girls, refugees, and other marginalized groups, have access to skateboarding thanks to Make Life Skate Life, and that number is set to rise with more parks in the pipeline.
Environmental Justice Foundation
The Environmental Justice Foundation exists to protect the natural world and defend our fundamental human right to a secure environment. The EJF investigates, documents, and exposes destruction to our planet and supports, trains, and equips environmental defenders, Indigenous peoples, communities, and independent journalists who speak truth to power and hold to account those responsible for crimes against nature.
Our partnership with the EJF began in 2021, when we organised an skateboard art exhibition, “For Cop’s Sake”, in our Glasgow store, raising environmental awareness and coinciding with the COP26 conference. The show culminated in an auction with all proceeds going to the EJF, and since then we’ve continued with our annual support for this worthwhile cause.
Route One’s support over the past two years has helped to provide camera equipment, drones and training to Chalana Esperança, a group of conservationists dedicated to protecting the Pantanal wetlands in Brazil, and its irreplaceable value to wildlife and Indigenous communities. In 2023, the EJF began to train youth activists drawn from Indigenous communities around the Pantanal wetlands, helping them to document the value of the region to their communities, and to safely gather evidence that will help drive change. To find out more about their work in the Pantanal, watch this:
BURNING PARADISE: How the EU is fuelling the Pantanal's demise
Avon Needs Trees
Avon Needs Trees (ANT) is a charity creating permanent woodland throughout the Bristol-Avon catchment, where Route One is based.
Over recent centuries the Bristol-Avon catchment area has lost most of its woodland and is now one of the most deforested parts of the UK, with a mere 8% woodland cover. ANT aims to reverse this by fundraising to buy land to plant new, permanent woodlands of well cared-for trees that will store up carbon over time and provide a biodiverse habitat for our native wildlife.
Since their initiation in 2019, ANT has planted over 35,000 trees over 160 acres, choosing an array of native species with a planting scheme that mimics a mature woodland. Creating new, permanent woodlands brings a range of benefits, from storing carbon to slowing climate change, boosting biodiversity, providing natural flood management, cleaner air, community spaces, and better wellbeing.
Our funding helped ANT in their purchase of a new 420-acre woodland site called the Lower Chew Forest. And we also sent a team out to volunteer at ANT’s Great Avon Wood site last month. On the 15th March 2024, 13 of our Route One team rolled up their sleeves, put on their wellies and went to get stuck in planting trees. Over the day we planted 407 native trees, consisting of alder, beech, silver birch, and holly. Whilst the heavens did open and we all ended up soaked through, everyone had a brilliant time, learnt a lot, and got roots in the ground that will stand for years to come.