Funding Opportunities for Eco Projects
Stay up to date with information on new funding opportunities for your eco project or activity. We will continue to add more information and other resources to this page over time.
If you have an idea for an eco group, project or activity but don’t know where to start, get in touch with our team for support and guidance on your funding requirements, identifying the right funding and making successful applications.
East Ren Climate Action Hub Small Grants
ERCAH is distributing small grants of between £100 to £500 to local community groups and 3rd Sector organisations to begin their climate action journey.
Find out more and apply on the Voluntary Action East Renfrewshire website.
Other funding opportunities
British Airways - Better World Community Fund
Funding for innovative projects that can help create a better world e.g., habitat restoration, enhancing biodiversity.
Your organisation must:
Be registered in the UK as a charity or social enterprise
Have a bank account in its own name and have been operating for over 12 months
Next deadline: ongoing
Cycling Scotland - Access to Bikes, Parking and Storage Fund
Cycling Scotland work with partners to support delivery of People & Place programme. Funding is available to enable more people to cycle through increasing affordable access to bikes, parking and storage. Cycling Scotland is working with partners at a national, regional and local level, to increase affordable access to bikes for children and young people and make sure that everyone in Scotland has a safe and appropriate place to store their bikes.
Next deadline: 12 July 2025
EB Scotland - Scottish Landfill Communities Fund
The fund offers funding to projects through the Scottish Landfill Communities Fund (SLCF). It will consider applications across all types of projects included in the SLCF Objects including: land reclamation, community recycling, public amenities and parks, biodiversity and historic buildings.
Applications should demonstrate:
- Community need
- Value for money
- Viability
- Sustainability
- Added value
- Disamenity (proximity to landfill sites or waste transfer stations)
Next deadline: Ongoing
Faith in Community Scotland - Greener Spaces, Fairer Places
This small grants scheme supports the work of faith groups taking small scale local actions which address the link between climate change and poverty.
Grants of up to £500 are available for local action around the following themes:
- Community mobilising (e.g.. events in your community bringing people together on climate action; outdoor installations & recycling; banner/ poster-making to raise awareness)
- More effective use of community land (e.g. using land to grow food, create a community garden)
- Respecting the environment (e.g. organising a local clean up, using buildings in a more eco-friendly way)
- Local action on reducing fuel consumption (eg supporting sustainable energy use)
Next deadline: ongoing
FCC Scottish Action Fund
The FCC Scottish Action Fund offers funding to projects through the Scottish Landfill Communities Fund (SLCF). It will consider applications across all types of projects included in the SLCF:
- Land Reclamation (Object A): The reclamation, remediation, restoration or other operation on land to facilitate economic, social or environmental use.
- Community Recycling (Object B): Community based recycling, re-use and waste prevention projects.
- Public Amenities and Parks (Object C): To provide, maintain or improve a public park or other public amenity.
- Biodiversity (Object D): The conservation or promotion of biological diversity through the provision, conservation, restoration or enhancement of a natural habitat or the maintenance or recovery of a species in its natural habitat.
- Historic Buildings (Object E): The maintenance, repair or restoration of a building, other structure or a site of archaeological interest which is a place of religious worship, or a site of historic or architectural or archaeological interest and is open to the public.
Next deadline: 14 May 2025
People's Postcode Trust
The aim of People’s Postcode Trust is to support smaller charities and good causes in the Scotland to make a difference to their community for the benefit of people and planet.
They support projects under the following categories:
- Enabling participation in physical activity
- Enabling participation in the arts
- Preventing or reducing the impact of poverty
- Supporting marginalised groups and tackling inequality
- Improving biodiversity and responding to the climate emergency
- Improving green spaces and increasing access to the outdoors
- Providing support to improve mental health (Focus on organisations that actively support specific mental health issues)
The funding offered is unrestricted and therefore flexible. It can be used however it is most needed.
Fund opens: 25 March 2025
The National Lottery Community Fund (Scotland) - Community Action
This funding is for communities in Scotland: people who share an identity, interest or experience, or people living in the same place. They offer funding from £20,001 to £250,000 for up to 5 years.
They’re looking for projects that will help people connect more with each other, and will support projects that are open, inclusive and led by their community.
Your project must achieve at least 2 of these outcomes:
- build positive relationships
- support people’s health or wellbeing
- help people improve their access and connection to nature
- make a positive difference to the environment.
These are a few examples of projects that achieve their outcomes:
- a regular programme of activities that improve the wellbeing of the community. And help people to connect with each other.
- community kitchens, larders, pantries and advice or support activities
- community gardens or growing projects
- environment clear ups, waste reducing activities or mending, repairing and upcycling workshops.
Next deadline: Ongoing
The National Lottery Community Fund (Scotland) - Scottish Land Fund
The fund will help communities take ownership of the land and buildings that matter to them, as well as practical support to develop their aspirations into viable projects. It supports communities to become more resilient and sustainable through the ownership and management of land and land assets.
The Scottish Land Fund is open to organisations in both urban and rural Scotland which are community-led, community-controlled, and defined by a geographic area.
Next deadline: ongoing
The Woodland Trust - Free Tree Packs
Tree packs give the opportunity to bring people together to plant trees – encouraging local wildlife, protecting our landscape against tree disease and creating wooded areas. There are thousands of free trees to give away to schools, community and youth groups.
Packs are dispatched in November and March when the trees are dormant and perfect for planting.
Next Deadline: Applications are expected to close in August
Parks4Life Community Fund
The primary goal of the Parks4Life Community Fund is to support community groups to deliver on their aim in bringing their parks to life and make the best of our parks for everyone to enjoy now and in the future.
Grants of up between £500 and £1,500 are available to community and Friends groups who work to improve, promote and develop a park or greenspace across Scotland. Funding could be used to help your group put on or expand an event to attract visitors to the park, skills training for your volunteers or something more practical such as a small planting scheme.
Deadline: Friday 30 August
The National Lottery Community Fund (Scotland) - Scottish Land Fund
The fund will help communities take ownership of the land and buildings that matter to them, as well as practical support to develop their aspirations into viable projects. It supports communities to become more resilient and sustainable through the ownership and management of land and land assets.
The Scottish Land Fund is open to organisations in both urban and rural Scotland which are community-led, community-controlled, and defined by a geographic area.
Deadline: Ongoing.
Cycling UK - Cycle Access Fund
The Cycle Access Fund supports those least likely to have access to a bike and provides capital grants to organisations through four different funding strands: Individual Bike Ownership, Shared Use, Recycle, Repair.
Deadline: Ongoing.
British Ecological Society - Outreach and Engagement Grants
Grants are available to deliver independent outreach, public engagement and science communication activities that engage public audiences with the excitement, importance and relevance of ecological science or enhance the experience and skills of others to communicate ecology with public audiences.
The grant will support diverse formats that reach and engage public audiences in innovative, creative and impactful ways, whether through in-person events, digital formats, or physical resources.
Deadline: 8 September 2025.
People's Postcode Lottery
People’s Postcode Trust supports smaller charities and good causes in Scotland to make a difference to their community for the benefit of people and planet.
Deadline: Ongoing.
The Scottish Government’s Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES)
The Scottish Government’s Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) will support community organisations to develop their own renewable energy projects, including wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) projects, through the Community Energy Generation Growth Fund, building on the success of last year’s pilot fund.
The Community Energy Generation Growth Fund can help community organisations with grant funding, advice, and loan funding to progress your renewable energy projects. Support can be at the feasibility, development or construction stages of a project.
Deadline: 25 June
The National Lottery Community Fund – Climate Action Fund - Our Shared Futures
The Climate Action Fund will support communities in the UK to take local action on climate change.
The programme will fund formal partnership projects that reach more people by either:
- linking climate action to the everyday lives and interests of local communities. And inspiring them to take action.
- influencing communities at a regional or national level. Like linking up groups across locations. Or a campaign that inspires change across one country, or the whole UK.
They are particularly interested in projects that involve people, places and communities experiencing poverty, discrimination and disadvantage.
Deadline: End of May 2025.
Scottish Education And Action For Development - SEAD Fund
SEAD provides small grants for individuals or groups for positive action, and campaigning. They fund proposals where the grant will have the most impact, for example, helping a new campaign to get started, or funding a specific concrete action for a local community.
They are particularly interested in applications that focus campaign activity on the following areas: women’s rights, young people and their global rights, climate justice, inequality, poverty and health justice.
Deadline: Ongoing.
Pump House Trust
The Trustees can fund a wide range of charitable activity, but are particularly interested in supporting smaller, community charities based in Scotland and connected with community development, environmental, women’s and youth issues with a view to encouraging social inclusion at all levels.
Deadline: Ongoing. Applications reviewed on a quarterly basis.
Apply to the trust via the administrators, Turcan Connell, marked FAO the Pump House Trust.