An environmental employee volunteering project, run by five charities including the National Trust, has attracted 3,500 participants and is calculated to be worth £500,000 since 2001.
Its report, Sharing the Caring: hands-on action in the countryside and community, quantifies the success of the Home Office-funded programme.
The Environmental Volunteering Project, run by BTCV, the RSPB, the Wildlife Trust and the Youth Hostel Association, started three years ago.
The report finds that a growing number of companies are factoring employee volunteering into staff's personal development plans, instead of CSR initiatives.
The news comes one month after a Social Market Foundation report found that many companies often restricted volunteering except in their own schemes (Third Sector, 29 September).