Community Climate and Nature Fund Guidance

Introduction to the fund

Warwick District Council is committed to creating a more sustainable district by supporting action that enhances biodiversity, conserves our natural environment, reduces waste, lowers carbon emissions and makes adaptations to manage the effects of climate change. To help achieve these aims, we have established the Community Climate and Nature Fund to fund community groups across the district to take action to create a greener and more resilient Warwick District.

Therefore we are seeking to fund projects which meet one or more of the following five aims:

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Adapting and building resilience to climate change
Conserving and enhancing biodiversity
Reducing waste, increasing recycling or supporting the circular economy
Research which enables access to more significant funding applications

How much can we apply for?

We will make grants of up to £10,000. The grant can cover the full costs of a project or can form part of a larger project.

If the grant funds part of a larger project, you will need to show that other funding is secured before this grant will be released.

Matched funding is not required for any project.

Organisations may submit multiple bids for different projects but the total bid for cannot exceed £10,000 in each funding window. Organisations may not receive more than £10,000 in any financial year so if you have had a successful bid already, you cannot bid for an amount that would take you over £10,000 if successful. For example, if you were successful for a bid for £5,000 in the first window, you could put in a separate bid or bids in a later window for up to but not exceeding £5,000.

Building works and capital items – There is a limit of £1,000 for any building works or asset purchases or upgrades that could be funded by the RUCIS grant scheme. This includes energy efficiency and generation measures such as solar panels and insulation, or EV chargepoints for public use.

Who can apply?

Registered Charities
Community Interest Companies (CIC)
Community Benefit Society
Constituted not-for-profit groups
Town and Parish councils
Schools

Who cannot apply?

Political parties
Religious organisations where the funding will be used for the purposes of religious activities or promotion
For-profit organisations
Individuals

What are the areas the funding can be used for?

1. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Projects that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the district. The main direct sources of district emissions are transportation and buildings, but projects can address emissions from any source. Projects may address a direct source of emissions, encourage people to take climate action, enable lifestyle changes or run educational programs. Examples of projects we would consider funding under this aim include:

Active travel projects to encourage walking, wheeling and cycling
Private EV charge point installation to enable a charity to adopt EV vehicles
Building works under £1,000 which reduce energy usage or generate zero-emissions energy
Extra-curricular activities for school children
Projects to encourage or enable reduced meat consumption or promote plant based foods/diets

We do not fund:

Building works over £1,000 as these are funded by the RUCIS grant scheme, this includes public EV chargepoints as well as energy efficiency and generation measures for buildings.
Thermal imaging cameras as these are available from our thermal imaging camera loan scheme
Home energy advice services as this service is already provided for the council by Act On Energy
School activities which are a curricular or statutory requirement
Schools paying for the Eco-schools plaque, as this is funded by Warwickshire County Council
100% of the costs of EV chargepoint installations where an organisation is eligible for a grant under the Workplace Charging Scheme. We will fund any costs remaining for installation which are not covered by the workplace charging scheme grant.

2. Adapting and building resilience to climate change

Projects that increase our resilience to the effects of climate change. Climate change is already causing changes to our world that are expected to increase. Examples of this are hotter drier summers and warmer, wetter winters with more frequent and extreme weather events such as storms and high winds.

Examples of projects funded include:

Flood defence enhancements
Provision of shading in outdoor spaces
Building works under £1,000 designed to adapt to climate change such as air-conditioning or shading for windows.
Community led adaptation programmes
Climate change adaptation training

We do not fund:

Building works over £1,000 as these are funded by the RUCIS grant scheme

3. Conserving and enhancing biodiversity

Projects that conserve and enhance biodiversity and support Warwickshire’s priority species and habitats in line with the Local Nature Recovery Strategy. Examples of projects funded include:

Bat boxes, Swift boxes, Bee bricks and similar habitat creation initiatives
Pond creation/restoration
Tree and hedgerow planting
Wildflower sowing / meadow creation and enhancement
Community led biodiversity programmes
Biodiversity education, training, events, etc. that help connect people with nature
Community wildlife gardens

4. Reducing waste, increasing recycling or supporting the circular economy

The circular economy is a system where materials never become waste through recycling, reuse and repair. This includes the design and production of products to ensure that they can be repaired, recycled or reused when they break. We will fund projects that seek to reduce waste and the impact of waste on our natural environment and in doing so increase the size of the circular economy in the district.

Examples include:

Repair cafes / workshops
Library of Things / swapping activities and events
Facilities and/or equipment which encourage or enable reuse and recycling
Composting facilities
Water saving initiatives and/or equipment
Community led reuse and recycling initiatives
Litter picking

5. Research which enables access to more significant funding applications for projects in the above areas

We will fund research that would support funding bids for larger projects that support one or more of the above four aims. Examples include:

Community energy project feasibility study
Building decarbonisation study
Rewilding feasibility study

What can I spend money on?

Funding can be spent on project costs or capital costs, with a maximum of 10% of the grant for overheads if needed. This includes things like:

Staff salaries
Venue hire
Purchase of equipment required to deliver project
IT subscriptions
Marketing

Overheads are to cover additional costs of a project which are not easily apportioned to a specific project, such as HR, IT support or office building rent, but which are needed to be covered to deliver a project.

We won’t fund:

Projects which are already started or have been completed (no retrospective funding)
Projects where the funding will be spent over longer than 12 months
Core costs beyond the overheads allowance
Projects being delivered outside of the Warwick District Council area
School projects which are curricular requirements (only extra-curricular activities are funded)
Building works over £1,000 as these are covered by RUCIS grants
Thermal imaging cameras as these can be borrowed from our loan scheme
Home energy advice services as these are provided for Warwick District Council by Act on Energy

How is our grant paid?

Up to £2,500 of a grant will be paid following the signing of the grant agreement with the remainder to be paid on completion of the project, or on a schedule agreed with Warwick District Council over the course of a project.

Organisation policy requirements and support

As a public authority, Warwick District Council is required to ensure that any organisations we fund have certain policies in place to receive a grant. The following policies may be required for a grant:

Equalities policy – required for all applications
Safeguarding policy – required for any applications where the project is expected to bring staff or volunteers in contact with children or vulnerable adults

If you don’t have a policy in place that is required for the grant, we can support you to write one. Please get in touch with us via email at sustainability@warwickdc.gov.uk before applying.

Financial controls and requirements

As our grant funding is public money, we must ensure that you are able to give us evidence of your organisation’s ability to adequately manage public funds and show us that you’ve done so, where we ask for this. It is essential that you can show us that you’ve appropriate financial governance in place to ensure that your organisation can successfully manage and deliver the project you want to be funded by us (whether wholly or in part).

As part of the grant terms and conditions, your organisation must:

hold the grant in a UK-based bank or building society account
make sure that this account is in the legal name of your organisation
make sure that the account is managed by at least two unrelated and authorised individuals in your organisation
have effective financial controls and review processes so that no single individual, nor two or more related people, have sole responsibility for any single transaction from authorisation to review and completion
keep accurate and full records about your project both during the project and for seven years afterwards
give us when we ask for them copies of those records and evidence of expenditure of the grant, such as original paper or electronic receipts, invoices and bank statements
follow our guidance on financial controls and financial governance

Monitoring, reporting & evaluation

During the delivery of your project, you must provide progress reports showing updates as to the status of your project delivery. Following completion of the project, applicants must complete an evaluation form detailing the positive environmental impacts the project has had. Applicants may be required to complete a case study, if this is required, we will tell you when the grant is awarded. The larger your grant application is, the more likely we will want a case study.

Evidence of all expenditure and compliant procurement procedures will need to be provided to the Council at the end of the project.

Any grant monies which remain unspent by your project end date will be returned to the Council unless advance notice is given of underspend and a plan agreed as to how and when this will be spent.

Guidance notes for application form questions

Tell us what you would like to do

Maximum 500 words. Use this answer to tell us about your project and what you are planning to do.

Tell us what activities you are going to run and how often they are going to happen.

Let us know who you expect to benefit from the activities, especially if they are aimed at specific groups or demographics. If you are delivering public activities, give us an estimation of how many people you expect to reach.

Make sure you include information about your previous experience in delivering similar projects and demonstrate your ability to deliver this project. You may attach a case study as an appendix for this purpose.

Which of our five aims does this project meet and how does it do that?

Maximum 500 words. Use this answer to explain how the activities described above support one or more of the five aims of our fund.

Delete as appropriate, and under each heading explain what outcomes you expect to see that would meet the aim of:

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Adapting and building resilience to climate change
Enhancing biodiversity
Reducing waste, increasing recycling or supporting the circular economy
Research which enables access to more significant funding applications

Provide evidence where available to show that your activities will produce the outcomes expected. You may attach one case study per aim from previous projects as an appendix to the application if this supports your case.

Does the project provide any other benefits?

Maximum 250 words. Use this section to let us know about any other benefits this project provides. Some examples of projects with other benefits:

A community gardening project provides health benefits from the physical activity of gardening and increases social inclusion by providing a social activity
A cycle training project provides health benefits by enabling people to switch journeys from car to bike, reducing air pollution and increasing levels of physical activity

When will the project happen?

Let us know the expected start and end dates for your project. For larger projects, please detail any milestones.

Where will the project take place?

This must be within Warwick District.

How will you know the project has been successful?

It is important for us to understand whether a project has achieved what it set out to do. Depending on the nature of your project and the level of funding requested, this could be as simple as demonstrating that the actions or activities the project funds have been completed – for example, if we funded 10 bat boxes, we would know the project has been successful when 10 bat boxes have been installed.

Some projects may have outcomes based on the number of people reached, or direct CO2 emission reductions achieved, or another measure based on the outcomes of activities carried out.

We will require some form of evidence of what has been achieved from the project. This may be confirmation of purchase of equipment, a case study of someone who has benefitted from the activity, photographs of completed works or something else.

Who will deliver the project and what will they need?

Tell us about your team, who is going to deliver the project, what experience or qualifications do they have. If you don’t have a specific person, tell us what the person you employ to do this work will need to have to be considered.

Tell us about the resources you need for the project – what equipment will you need to buy or hire, venues you’ll use and anything else you need in order to deliver the project successfully.

What is the process for applications?

Application forms should be submitted online. If you have not already created an online MyAccount, please do so before completing the form. This will enable you to save your progress and come back to the form at a later time if you need to.

Before applying, make sure you have read through the full guidance document to ensure your project is eligible and that you have completed the application form correctly.

If you are unable to complete the online form, a word document version may be used. Please email sustainability@warwickdc.gov.uk to request a paper form.

Guidance and FAQs

Apply for the Community Climate and Nature Fund

Community Climate and Nature Fund application form

Application windows for 2026/27 financial year

Applications open	Applications close	Decision by
1 July 2026	30 September 2026	31 October 2026
1 October 2026	31 December 2026	31 January 2027
1 January 2027	31 March 2027	30 April 2027

Scoring

All applications will be scored using the following scores, the highest scoring applications will be approved for grants until the total funding pot available in the window is allocated.

The following aspects of an application will be scored:

Answer to the question “Tell us about your project”
Answer to the question “Which of our five aims does this project meet and how does it do that?”
Answer to the question “Does the project provide any other benefits?”
Answer to the question “When will the project happen?”
Answer to the question “Where will the project take place?”
Answer to the question “How will you know if the project has been successful?”
Answer to the question “Who will deliver the project and what will they need?”

If we have underrepresented aims or geographical areas, we may decide to score additional points on this basis. Please ensure you have the latest guidance document downloaded from our website to check if any areas are being prioritised for the current application window.

Question	Weighting
“Tell us what you would like to do”	10%
“Which of our five aims does this project meet and how does it do that?”	30%
“Does the project provide any other benefits?”	10%
“When will the project happen?”	5%
“Where will the project take place?”	5%
“How will you know if the project has been successful?”	30%
“Who will deliver the project and what will they need?”	10%

Scoring for all questions

Score	Rating	Reason
0	Poor	The response is deficient and does not relate to the question.
1	Adequate	The response provides some detail, but further information is required. .
2	Good	The response provides a good level of information but could go further to provide a greater and/or more well-rounded response to meet the project requirements.
3	Superior	The response demonstrates that the organisation can meet or exceed the requirements.