Most of this year coronavirus emergency relief has dominated the lottery funds and grants. However, the amazing projects players fund every time they buy a lottery ticket is not limited to helping arts and community projects through the pandemic. One of the the National Lottery’s biggest ongoing projects is a series of lottery funded climate projects called Climate Action Fund. It’s a ten-year plan, setting aside funds for schemes and programmes to tackle some of our most immediate environmental issues. Every little bit helps, and the fund helps both small and large programmes. Across the UK, your lottery tickets help improve our environment.
About the Lottery Funded Climate Projects
2020 begins a 10-year plan and for its inaugural year, the National Lottery handed out grants to 14 projects. The highest fund level contains grants worth anything between £1.3m and £2.5m each. There are also much smaller grants for local and smaller-scale projects (between £197k and £373k). 2020 grant winners of the lottery funded climate projects include:
- Cumbria Action for Sustainability received £2.5 to make Cumbria the first carbon neutral UK county
- Duchy College in Cornwall received £1.3m for local farmers to move to zero net emissions
- Middlesbrough Environment Trust received a grant to improve sustainable living in the city
- The various Wildlife Trusts of Wales
- Women’s Environmental Network Trust in Tower Hamlets received £2.1m for its sustainable food projects
The National Lottery Community Fund realises that the key to tackling climate change is a multi-front issue. We need big decisions at government level. However, we also need small, local, sustainable, people-driven decisions too. To that end, there are actions we can all take in our streets, our homes, and cities, and elsewhere. This is why grassroots schemes are so important right now. We expect hundreds of lottery funded climate projects between now and when the scheme ends in 2030.