Deadline: 13-Sep-21
Applications for the Grow Back Greener Fund 2021 are now open to support a wide range of activities to help make London greener, fairer, healthier, and more resilient.
COVID-19 has demonstrated just how important their city’s green spaces are for Londoners’ quality of life.
They’re looking for community projects across the capital that will improve access to green space and help them adapt to climate change.
These activities should take place in and enhance publicly accessible spaces including parks, community gardens, housing estates, streets, school playgrounds, waterways and nature reserves.
They should mainly be focused on making physical improvements to the space.
Aims
The Grow Back Greener Fund aims to:
- enhance London’s vital green and blue spaces, and make the built environment greener, to help the capital adapt and respond to the climate and ecological emergency
- address the environmental and health inequalities highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic by prioritising projects in locations with poor access to green space, high vulnerability and exposure to the impacts of climate change, and high flood and heat risk
- create more opportunities for all Londoners, especially those from communities that use green spaces less, to access training to develop green skills, and to access green spaces, including by volunteering
- support communities, civil society organisations, environmental NGOs, local authorities, schools and housing associations to take local action that builds community resilience and supports Londoners to recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Themes
- They will prioritise projects that:
- are in areas of the city with poor access to open space, and high climate risk, especially where these are also areas of deprivation
- work with, or are preferably led by, Londoners who are less likely to access green space. This includes Black, Asian and minority ethnic Londoners, lower-income Londoners, and people aged 65 and over
- include opportunities for Londoners to access training or develop new skills.
- The 2021 Grow Back Greener Fund will offer grants under two themes:
- Access to green space: The access to green space theme will support projects that create new green space and green cover; open up previously inaccessible spaces; or improve the quality and accessibility of existing green space.
- Climate adaptation and water: The climate adaptation and water theme will support projects that aim to enhance London’s resilience to climate change through green and blue infrastructure, and/or nature-based solutions that reduce flood risk, improve water quality, create shade and cool the city.
Funding Information
- A total of £1.2m is available in this funding round, and they expect to be able to support about 50 projects. This funding will be evenly split across the two themes.
- For the access to green space theme, grants between £10,000 and £50,000 are available.
- For the climate adaptation and water theme, grants between £10,000 and £75,000 are available. This is to reflect the higher costs of some of these types of projects, such as sustainable drainage schemes.
Eligibility Criteria
Applications are open to:
- registered charities including Charitable Incorporated Organisations
- formally constituted community groups
- Social and not-for-profit businesses including Community Interest Companies and social enterprises
- Community Benefit Societies
- tenants and residents’ associations, or Tenant Management Organisations (TMO)
- housing associations
- local authorities, where working in collaboration with one or more local community groups, schools or civil society organisations
- Schools, including academy trusts, parents’ associations or other organisations working on behalf of a school.
For more information, visit https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/civil-society/grants-and-funding