The UW Foundation was founded with three clear objectives and the last year has seen us make great progress on all of these. So here’s some more information on everything we’ve done so far:

UW is opening thousands of branches

We don’t have physical stores on the high streets of Britain but we did commit to planting thousands of trees. We teamed up with Forest Carbon to fund the planting of more than 100,000 native trees in the UK. We chose Bryn Arw, an area in the Brecon Beacons, as the home of the UW Woodland. 

We committed to funding the planting of a tree for every new customer that joined UW and in April of 2020, our CEO paid a visit to Bryn Arw to plant the first seeds in the UW Woodland. And since then, we’ve been opening new branches at an incredible pace. 

Nearly a year after that first seed was planted, we’ve planted over 117,000 trees - enough to absorb over 32,000 tonnes of CO2. 

Turning back the tide on plastic pollution 

When looking for a charity partner, it was important that we partnered with someone who believed in the same things as we did. And Ocean Generation fitted the bill perfectly. Ocean Generation aims to increase awareness of the dangers of plastic in our rivers, seas and oceans. They do this by supporting community-based education programmes and enabling underrepresented young people to participate and have a voice. 

Over the last 12 months, money raised by UW Partners for Ocean Generations is matched by UW. UW Partners have been doing all sorts to raise money, including swimming around the coast of Jersey. This money will go to helping communities understand the impact of plastic on ocean health and the ways in which changes in behaviour can positively impact this. 

Supporting local communities 

UW Partners are representatives of their local community and embody community spirit like no others. They support local fetes and fayres, they support local business groups and they support their colleagues, families, and friends. So we knew it was all about the importance of supporting local communities. 

We made the decision to support disadvantaged communities close to our offices in London, Bolton, and Bournemouth and the UW Foundation matched every single £1 raised by Partners and colleagues. This meant that any money raised for these communities was doubled by the business. During the pandemic, we supported NHS Charities as well as foodbanks in our local communities. So far, the UW Foundation has raised more than £76,000 for good causes.

Keep an eye on our UW Foundation Page for more information.