Event Dates:3 - 4 Aug, 2025 • 16:30 - 16:30
In person

Spring Valley Quatt Bridgnorth
Shropshire,
West Midlands,
WV156QG

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Rooted in Resilience: A Nature Retreat for Built Environment Professionals

Join us for a nature retreat to boost your personal resilience, recharge, and take away insights about regenerative leadership.
Event
In person
Future event

About this event

Press pause. Breathe in nature. Root your personal resilience.

In a world of multiple intersecting crises, sustainability professionals are carrying more than ever. Driving change in these uncertain and unjust times, the constant pressure to know and do more, all while trying to balance your personal life, your health, and your role at work.

Personal resilience isn’t optional; it’s essential to avoiding strain on you and to navigating these challenges effectively.

This retreat offers a vital pause. Placed mid-summer at an (mormally) quieter time at work. A moment to reconnect with yourself, nature, and the reassurance that you are not alone, and at the same time, identify and restore your resilience and continue ready to lead the change our built environment needs.

What to expect and why attend?

This 24-hour immersive and experiential retreat in nature is designed for professionals working to build a more sustainable world – and feeling the weight of it.

You will be guided through four key processes:

1. Reflect – (around the self to the bigger picture – the world at large, and climate and planetary crisis)
2. Recognise (assess where you are in today’s picture, what your needs are, and what your own resilience toolkit looks like)
3. Reconnect – (with yourself as a nature-being and with peers, and your own resilience)
4. Restore – (while reactivating the strength for what’s needed — for you, your business and the built environment)

Ultimately, leaving you connected with your capacity to meet today’s demands, in your life, and your work, in this world.

Set in a beautiful, secluded 100-acre woodland (near Bridgnorth, Shropshire), the retreat includes:

Mindfulness, nature-immersed activities, fireside stories, and reflective conversations, providing an opportunity to reconnect and reflect on the potential loss of momentum with like-minded people, sharing stories and experiences from different business perspectives.
The luxury of peace, time to pause, breathe, a space to re-align, and be — solo and with others facing similar journeys.
Practical tools from UKGBC leadership programmes that lift our focus towards systems change and regenerative leadership. Insights from our Regenerative Places, Nature Positive Framework, and Climate Resilience Roadmap programmes are also featured.
And to complete the experience, delicious vegetarian meals and a choice of accommodation nestled in nature.

You’ll leave with enhanced personal readiness, deeper clarity, and renewed energy to lead and thrive through change.

Who should attend?
This retreat is a must for those who feel in need of a reset type experience, targeted at sustainability professionals or other leaders who are trying to make change to a more sustainable built environment.

Why attend?

This retreat is designed to help you navigate today’s challenges in a way that isn’t just a quick fix, but a genuine reconnection with your own capacity to move through them.

You’ll step away from the noise and into nature, guided through a process of reflection and connection where you will:

1
Explore where you are in these challenging and uncertain times, and what you need.
2
Practice how to reconnect with (your) nature as a source of calm and regeneration, easing anxiety and stress, and building personal readiness
3
Connect with others from across the built environment to share challenges and insights.
4
Feel empowered by regenerative framing and tools to take forward into your work and business.
5
Take away tools applicable to you personally and in your role.
6
Feel restored, clearer, uplifted and connected!

Who will guide the retreat?

Facilitated by Elfrida Hamilton-Russell (Director of leadership) and Dr Macarena Cárdenas, Senior Advisor, Resilience and Nature, with guest appearance from previous UKGBC CEO Julie Hirigoyen

Logistics details
The course fee covers the full retreat experience, including accommodation, all meals, drinks, refreshments and bedding.

Accommodation: The retreat will be hosted in a secluded woodland retreat surrounded by nature — a peaceful, private space designed to help you unwind, breathe deeply, and fully immerse in the experience. Accommodation options range from traditional camping, to ‘glamping’ in cabins, or farmhouse stays.

All options will be shown upon clicking ‘Tickets’, and are available on a first-come first served basis.

Travelling: Exact address and directions will be provided. For logistical planning, nearest train stations are Wolverhampton and Telford, (30 mins away), and nearest town to the retreat location is Bridgnorth, Shropshire.

Note: this programme can also be delivered for whole teams (8-12 people), please get in touch with learning@ukgbc.org if this is of interest for your organisation.

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Organisation

UKGBC

Organisation contact

learning@ukgbc.org

Open to

All are welcome.

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