The Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund (NeIRF) is a competitive grants scheme providing grants of between £10,000 and £100,000 to support the development of environmental projects in England.
The fund is for not-for-profit organisations, including charities and environmental non-governmental organisations, a public body, including local councils and national park authorities or a company or other business registered with HMRC, including sole traders, academic institutions, community interest companies and community benefit companies.
Projects must be for the benefit of others and:
- Help achieve one or more natural environmental outcomes from the 25 year environment plan
- Have the ability to produce revenue from ecosystem services to attract and repay investment
- Produce an investment model that can be scaled up and reproduced
The grants will offer:
- Support from professional advisors to develop your project, address barriers to investment and present an attractive case for potential investors
- Help you to build capability to attract financial investment into natural environment projects
- Support to develop a market for ecosystem services (such as investment or trading platforms, codes for verifying benefits, aggregator vehicles)
The grants are to add to your own resources in the development of investment readiness proposals. All costs must be directly associated with developing the investment readiness proposal to be eligible for funding. When carried out, these must have the potential to provide activities that meet all the fund’s aims. The grant can fund up to 100% of eligible costs.
Further information can be found on the government website.
An application must be completed for an NEIRF grant between 8 November 2021 and 3 February 2022.
