Environmental Action Fund (EAF)

These pages are for anyone interested in the Environmental Action Fund, or knowing what work it has supported. The Environmental Action Fund (EAF) helps English voluntary groups to advance the Government's sustainable development policies.

Defra has fully allocated all resources currently available to the EAF for 2002-2005. To register for information on possible future grant rounds, please contact Defra at the address below.

• EAF Priority Areas
• Current EAF Projects
• Grants 2003/2004
• Grants 2002/2003
• Grants 2001/2002
• Further information
• Alternative Sources of Grant
• Contacting Defra

EAF Priority Areas

The Fund's current priority areas are: a) biodiversity; and b) understanding and awareness of sustainable development.

EAF-funded Biodiversity projects carry out strategic activities to meet the Government's objective of promoting species and habitat biodiversity in England. Biodiversity is the richness and variety of plants, birds, animals, fish and insects that exist throughout the world. It concerns the whole variety of living things, form the commonplace to the greatly endangered, and the habitats that support them. People's interaction with biodiversity shows whether out social and economic development is sustainable. Much of this funding support the development and realisation of national and local biodiversity action plans. It supports marine as well as land-based activities, and both urban and rural areas. It involves relevant local communities.

EAF-funded Understanding and awareness projects include education for sustainable development (ESD): the learning needed if individuals, communities and businesses are to develop the knowledge, values and skills they need to participate in decisions about the way they do things, individually and collectively, both locally and globally, that will maintain and improve our quality of life and the quality of life of generations to come. Understanding and awareness funding also sought to support voluntary groups carrying out work developing innovative ideas about ways to remove barriers to Sustainable Development, in particular in the areas of climate change, resource productivity and waste. Work with an urban or rural focus was eligible.

Current EAF Projects

Please see our updated list of current EAF projects (including contact details and project summaries) (150 KB)

Grants 2003/2004

57 groups who took up the offer of funding for three-year projects commencing in April 2002 successfully re-applied for the second year of their work. A press notice announcing these awards was issued on 8 April 2003.

Grants 2002/2003

A press notice (4 April 2002) announced EAF grant awards for 2002-3. The majority of the grants were for new, three-year projects commencing in April 2002.

Grants 2001/2002

EAF grant awards for 2001-2002 were announced in a DETR Press Notice [No. 201] dated 2 April 2001. Details of successful groups, their contact details and a summary of their work are set out in this list of funded projects.

Further information

More information about groups and work supported by EAF grants in the past can be found in:

• EAF Annual Report 1997-98
• EAF Annual Report 1998-99
• EAF Annual Report 1999-00
• EAF Annual Report 2000-01 (200 KB)
• EAF Annual Report 2001-02 (200 KB)

The review of the EAF prepared for Defra by Quadrangle Consulting is set out in the 2001 EAF Review Report.

Defra also produce "Activate", a 6 monthly newsletter. The latest editions of Activate - Activate 10 ( 230 KB) and Activate 11 ( 250 KB) have news and information items as well as articles from EAF-funded groups.

Copies of the then DETR's "Guide to Good Practice in Managing Environmental Projects" are also available in printed form from the contact points noted below . This document was published in 1997, and although much of it will still be useful to groups, we cannot guarantee the currency of all the resources it describes.

Alternative Sources of Grant

Voluntary groups seeking funding for their work may find helpful the list of sources of grants for environmental and sustainable development projects (Adobe Acrobat format, 230kb). This list is regularly updated with changes notified to us [last updated 21 March 2003], but Defra cannot advise on the detail of these or whether they are appropriate for particular groups or projects.

Contacting Defra

If you want further information about the Environmental Action Fund, then you should first consult the pages indexed above. If you then need to contact Defra, you can do so as follows:

• E-mail envbusiness@defra.gsi.gov.uk - please quote "EAF" in the subject line
• Telephone us on 020 7082 8662
• Fax us on 020 7082 8698

See also: material on Sustainable Development

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