Volunteers work on Koko’s urban forest an a council estate in Camden Town

This feature appeared in our London Blooms  2025 special edition celebrating spring

FROM beatboxers to bee boxes, Koko, the world famous Camden Town music venue, has more to it than sold out shows of big name acts and up and coming musicians.

Its charitable wing, the Koko Foundation, has a focus on environmental causes in Camden – and this spring they are teaming up with eco-charity Think and Do to build new habitats for bees on council-managed housing estates.

The community initiative is a second instalment of vertical plant boxes – known as “Beeline Boxes” – on the Bayham Place Estate in Bayham Street.

The Beeline Box initiative was first launched in July 2024 when they installed 90 vertical plant boxes on the Three-Fields Estate in Arlington Road, Mornington Crescent.

Co-founder and CEO of Koko Foundation Sophia Passeti said: “With the first signs of spring emerging, we’re looking ahead to an exciting year as the Koko Foundation’s environmental initiatives continue to take root.”

The plant boxes were created to facilitate a “vertical planting” system to maximise opportunities for plants where green space is limited, making them ideal for housing estates.

The boxes are fastened to railings on public walkways and filled with evergreen herbs which are chosen by the residents.

The Beeline Box initiative is one of two initiatives launched in partnership with Think & Do and Camden Council.

The foundation has also planted scores of trees across the borough.

The project pays for the trees to be maintained by a group of “Koko Foresters’’ – young people aged 16-25 who lives on the estates where the trees have been planted and are then trained up to care for them and paid for the work they do.

Called the Communi-Trees project, it launched in 2022 and has seen more than 300 trees being planted across 14 council estates and 25 schools in the borough.

The work includes 179 fruit trees.

Ms Passeti told the New Journal: “A crucial part of this project is to provide young people with an opportunity while bringing benefits for the community.

“Employing young people to care for the trees helps connect them to what to look at through the seasons and watch it grow.

“I have been deeply moved by the profound impact our initiatives are making.”

A review by Nature England’s found that 70 per cent of UK adults agreed being close to nature improves their mood, with 49 per cent stating being close to nature helped them to cope with stress.

Additionally, with Camden’s pollution levels being 24 per cent higher than the UK average, the initiatives are playing an important role in greening the borough and improving health and wellbeing, the Foundation added.