Funding

When we talk to schools about climate action, the same two barriers always get mentioned: money and time. We can’t help with more hours in the day, but here are some potential funding sources and free resources for environmental projects, sourced by the CATCh team and grouped by theme.

We’ll add more as we find them, and let us know of any others in the comments.

Biodiversity and outdoor education

  • RHS School Gardening Awards: Progressing through the levels of the award earns vouchers for equipment and free resources like books.
  • Outdoor Essentials Grants: The Ernest Cook Trust Up give small grants of up to £500 for Primary, £1000 for Secondary in certain areas linked to outdoor education – look them up to see when the next funding round opens.
  • Woodland Trust free trees for schools: The Woodland Trust give out free trees twice a year, for planting in March or in November.
  • British Trust for Ornithology: Request free equipment for bird watching and surveying.
  • Get Out! Grant: Up to £500 to facilitate outdoor education and visits. Opens in the Spring.
  • Alpkit Foundation: Up to £500 to support outdoor education and trips, rolling applications.
  • National Education Nature Park – resources and non-competitive £10,000 funding (not open-call) to improve school grounds. Money has to be spent by end of this academic year, school must sign up to be a Nature Park school and create site boundary and link to URN before applying – and check if you’re eligible first!

Food

  • Tesco’s Stronger Starts: A rolling opportunity with applications every three months, with grants up to £1,500 for growing spaces and food projects.
  • Veolia Orchards: Free fruit trees and strawberry plants. Applications open in September.
  • The Countryside Trust: Farm-based learning experiences for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
  • Morrisons It’s Good To Grow: Not so relevant in Luton as we don’t have a Morrisons. But for those that do, you can encourage parents and staff to collect tokens when shopping instore to claim free gardening equipment.

Waste

  • Terracycle: Host a drop-off point for tricky forms of recycling, such as Pringles cans or biscuit packets, and earn money for the school.
  • Empties Please: Get rewards like gardening equipment for sending in empty printer cartridges.
  • Bag 2 School: Collect textiles and get paid by weight for donated clothes. Currently 50p per kilo and £500 per tonne.
  • B&Q community reuse: the DIY store donates surplus or display stock to community projects, including schools. A good place to get free plants.
  • B&Q Community Reuse – donation of products to local causes including schools https://www.diy.com/responsible-business/community/community-re-use 

Transport

Energy

  • Solar for Schools: supporting schools to fund, install and benefit from solar panels – look them up to see examples of how to pay for solar with little or no up-front cost.
  • Energy Saving Trust: free resources for schools.
  • Energy savings: It’s not funding per se, but energy efficiency will save the school money. Here are the DfE’s tips for schools.

Other

General funding opportunities