Veolia, the resource management company, has launched its 2024 £110k Sustainability Fund to help local communities bloom with diversity.
Applications for Veolia’s Sustainability Fund opened on 22 May with garden parties held at community gardens across the country to celebrate the launch.
The parties, hosted by previous beneficiaries of the Sustainability Fund, connected community groups and changemakers on the International Day for Biological Diversity and invited them to discuss how biodiversity can be improved in local areas.
Veolia’s 2023 fund supported 124 grassroots projects with over £90,000 in funding.
This year, in partnership with more local authorities across the country, Veolia says it is particularly interested in funding projects that make a positive, long-term difference to biodiversity.
Veolia’s Sustainability Fund is open to not-for-profit organisations, community groups, or individuals in areas where the company delivers waste and street cleansing services for the community. Applicants can request funding of up to £1,000 per project as well as in-kind resources and volunteers.
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All applications will be considered, but Veolia says projects should aim to fulfil at least one of the following criteria: enhancing biodiversity; promoting sustainable behaviours (reduce, reuse, recycle); protecting or preserving resources and the environment by using recycled, reused, or reclaimed materials.
In previous years, successful projects have delivered long-term social and environmental benefits to local communities such as Hammersmith Community Gardens Association, which created homes and food for pollinators by installing planters in school playgrounds across Hammersmith & Fulham and Polegate Jubilee Nature Reserve Volunteers, which managed a new area of conservation woodland in the South Downs.
Pascal Hauret, managing director, municipal at Veolia, said : “I am always thrilled to see projects we support through the Sustainability Fund coming to life, and look forward to reviewing all the creative and inspiring applications for this year.
“Biodiversity is one of the pillars of ecological transformation and we’re proud to be supporting the communities we work in every day to make their local areas even greener.”
Earlier this month, it was revealed Veolia was conducting a world-first trial using enzymes to speed up the process of removing carbon dioxide from the climate with enhanced rock weathering.
