Tayshan Hayden-Smith is a community leader and environmental activist from North Kensington. After the Grenfell Tower tragedy, he founded Grow to Know, using gardening as a tool for collective healing and campaigning for equitable access to green space through Closing the Green.

Tayshan Hayden-Smith is a community leader, an environmental visionary, and social justice activist rooted in North Kensington, West London. A former professional footballer, he was among the community profoundly affected by the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017. In its aftermath, he turned to gardening as a means of collective healing. From that act of hope, he founded Grow to Know, a not-for-profit built on the conviction that access to green space and nature is a right, not a privilege. Most recently, Grow to Know launched Closing the Green Gap – a campaign to make that vision a reality.

The organisation has gone on to forge pioneering partnerships with the likes of Gucci, Nike, and Penguin Random House, demonstrating that the mission to create access to nature crosses industries and communities. Tayshan has since established himself as a leading voice at the intersection of socio-environmental justice and community-led change. His work has reached mainstream audiences through TV, broadcasting, and media – taking the conversation about green equity into living rooms across the country. He is the author of Small Space Revolution, a Commissioner on the London Climate and Sustainability Commission (LCSC), working directly with the Mayor of London on the capital's sustainability strategy, and an Ambassador to the National Trust.

In 2025, Tayshan was named one of National Geographic's inaugural 33 honourees, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to people, planet, and possibility.