Veolia launched this year’s Sustainability Fund on World Environment Day (5 June 2025) with over £150,000 available to help support people across the country transform their local environments and communities.
To celebrate its fifth anniversary, the Sustainability Fund is expanding its criteria to include social projects alongside environmental initiatives, with one extraordinary project receiving a bumper grant of £5,000.
Sustainability Fund applications opened on 5 June 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 World Environment Day and invited them to discuss how funding could be used to improve their local areas.
Now in its fifth year, Veolia is particularly interested in funding projects that make a positive difference to biodiversity or social initiatives that create meaningful, lasting impact within local communities, with over £150,000 in funding available.
Previously successful projects that are delivering long-term social and environmental benefits to local communities include:
- St Albans Civic Rose Garden Regeneration
- Birmingham’s Fruit and Nut Village
- Haringey’s Friends of Hartington Park and Carbuncle Passage
- Sutton’s Ruskin Road Repair Cafe
- Grovelands School in East Sussex
Veolia’s Sustainability Fund is open to not-for-profit organisations, community groups, and individuals in areas where the company delivers recycling and waste services for communities. Applicants can request funding of up to £1,000 per project as well as in-kind resources and volunteers.
For its fifth anniversary, one standout project will receive a bumper grant of up to £5,000. This additional award will recognise an application that promises remarkable long-term community impact.
All applications will be considered, with environmental projects needing to meet at least one of the following criteria:
- enhances biodiversity
- promotes sustainable behaviours through reduce, reuse and recycle initiatives
- protects the environment by using recycled, reused or reclaimed materials.
And new for 2025, the Sustainability Fund is expanding to include social projects alongside environmental initiatives. This broader focus now welcomes projects that strengthen the local community, including but not limited to: employment support programmes, rehabilitation projects, and youth development initiatives.
Applications can be made via Veolia’s website at veolia.co.uk/Sustainability-Fund. The fund will be open for applications until Tuesday 30 September.
Pascal Hauret, Managing Director, Municipal at Veolia, said: “Since the launch of the Sustainability Fund, we have funded 425 incredible projects with over £300,000 in the areas where we deliver essential recycling and waste services on behalf of our Local Authority partners.
“Celebrating the fifth anniversary of our Sustainability Fund is a significant landmark. We have seen first-hand how it can make a huge difference to both people and the planet by supporting local communities across the UK. I’m looking forward to reviewing some unique and inspiring applications this year, from environmental and biodiversity projects to social initiatives.”
