Award History
The History of the Green Flag Award
2026 marks 30 years of the Green Flag Award! We’re proud that over 2,500 parks and green spaces are now accredited with the international standard. Let’s look back at how we got here.
1996–1997: Foundations and the first winners
The Green Flag Award was first developed in England in 1996 in response to declining standards of park infrastructure, management and maintenance across the sector. Park professionals realised the only way to communicate the required staffing, funding and resources needed to deliver good quality parks was through a recognised benchmarking system.
The first awards ceremony held at Birmingham Botanic Gardens in 1997
Many stakeholders were involved in the early conceptual meetings. The original steering group consisted of key organisations such as Pesticides Action Network UK and the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management. To ensure the award criteria considered a wider spectrum of criteria and focus, representatives from outside the park sector were also involved. Including the Black Environment Network, Natural England, Friends of the Earth and the Women’s Environment Network.
The first awards ceremony was held at the Birmingham Botanic Gardens in 1997, where the first awards were granted to 7 winners meeting the new standard. Among those pioneering green spaces were Cockington Country Park, Worden Park, Queen's Park, and Highgate Wood. Over the years, the award began to grow rapidly as new councils and park management organisations became involved.
2002–2003: Expanding the scope
In 2002 the Green Pennant Award, now called the Green Flag Community Award was launched for sites managed by volunteers or community groups.
Craig Savage celebrates Green Heritage Site accreditation for the Irish National War Memorial Gardens in Dublin in 2021
In 2003 with the support of Historic England the Green Heritage Site Accreditation was launched to recognise those Green Flag Award winning sites that recognise, conserve, enhance, promote and share the historic value of their park or green space.
2008: Going global
And in 2008, just over 10 years after the original launch, Green Flag Award flags started to fly over countries outside the UK. Since then, the award has expanded to become the mostly widely establish international certification programme for parks and green spaces. With over 20 countries now featuring Green Flag Award winning sites.
2020–2023: Digital hubs and safer spaces
In 2020 we launched the Green Flag Award Resources Hub – bringing together a wide repository of guidance, policy and management plans to share with our international network. And following on from that in 2022 the Parks and Green Spaces Research Portal in partnership with the University of Leeds and University of Sheffield.
Building on this focus on community-centric data, 2023 marked the introduction of the Safer Parks for Women and Girls guidance project, addressing a critical need for equity and safety in public design in today’s parks and green spaces.
2026: Diversification and the Academy
Over the years the type of sites applying for the award has diversified from mainly municipal parks - with nature reserves, woodland, cemeteries, canals, beach gardens, university campuses and museum grounds all winning awards. Even several national parks!
In 2026 The Green Flag Award Academy was launched to ensure the parks sector in the UK and abroad was supported through the free sharing of best practice, workshops, webinars and study tours.
2026 and beyond!
Today the programme is owned by the UK Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government and managed by environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy - working with a number of international delivery partners. Keep Britain Tidy have now successfully run the programme in partnership for 17 consecutive years.
And what about those four original winning parks from 1997? Where are they today? Well, they’re still going incredibly strong! They’ve held the award every single year since day one, and they’re proudly flying their flags today.
Sign up to our newsletter to keep informed on the next chapter of this fantastic award!
