What we learnt from our 2024 Grantee Environmental Sustainability Survey

Here we reflect on our grantee Environmental Sustainability survey, where we asked grantees from January 2021 to June 2024 to tell us about their approaches to environmental sustainability to inform the support we might offer. This anonymous survey was completed in June/July 2024.

Who responded?

114 grantees responded to the survey from our main programmes between January 2021 to June 2024. Over half were grantees from our local programmes based in Buckinghamshire, our Community and Strategic Funds. In terms of size of the organisations, the largest proportion were considered Medium sized organisations with a turnover between £100,001-£1million.

Approaches to Environmental Sustainability

We asked grantees to share their approaches to environmental sustainability across six areas.

Most common areas of implementation were in Waste and Energy whether taking steps to reduce, reuse and recycle (82%), reducing unnecessary printing (80%), energy use (63%) and single use plastic (60%). 

Lowest response rates overall was Biodiversity and Land Use, with 43% ‘supporting nature at their work premises’, though it should be noted that not all organisations have their own premises.

For Governance, organisations were most likely to have ‘a sustainability or environmental policy’ (52%) or ‘Environmental sustainability was included in core business strategies’ (50%). This was reflected in the low levels of monitoring.

• • 2 in 5 organisations had ‘carried out a simple energy audit’
  • 23% ‘calculated their Carbon Footprint’
  • 22% ‘had a sustainability or environmental action plan and monitor their progress/KPIs’

The smaller an organisation in terms of turnover (under £1m), the less likely they were to have/do any of these.

• In Procurement and Partnerships grantees were most likely to be actively seeking ‘to reduce commuting and business milage’ (59%) and ‘sourcing food from local suppliers’ (55%)
• For Engagement and Collaboration they were most likely to have ‘collaborated with other organisations on environmental solutions’ (48%)

Barriers to developing and delivering Environmental Sustainability

Lack of funding and time were most common barriers to developing and delivering on environmental sustainability approaches, followed by lack of ‘skills/knowledge’.

18% cited ‘Other barriers’, most frequent was lack of control of their premises.

Enabling Environmental Sustainability ambitions

When asked what would be most useful to support sustainability ambitions. Funding was mentioned generally (16 respondents): with specific reference to targeted / ring-fenced to this area (9), additional staff resource/time (11/9), to resource an experts time (11).  Expert time through training (12) or specific 1-2-1 tailored support was also valued.

Our response to the survey findings

Organisations are at different stages in their environmental sustainability approaches, with lower levels of development and delivery of approaches for medium/smaller organisations (turnover under £1 million). This is mainly grantees of our Buckinghamshire based programmes (Community and Strategic Funds).

In response to the research findings, in 2025 we are piloting a Green Fund to explore how we can support our grant-holders to address the challenge of climate change within their own organisations. Find out more about the Green Fund here.

Thank you to all our grantees that responded to the survey, we really appreciate the time taken to help us understand your needs and how we can develop and improve our offering.