£100,000 Climate Infrastructure Fund - Deadline 9th June 2022

South Hams District Council is launching an expression of interest round for a fund to support and boost investment in the development of infrastructure related projects to help the district reduce its carbon emissions. 

It's part of our efforts to become Net Zero by 2050 - the previous fund, the Climate Engagement Fund, was all about behaviour change and whilst that is critical to reaching net zero, suitable infrastructure needs to be established to increase the availability of alternatives to things such as travel

What do we mean by infrastructure

In order for the district, county, and nation to become net-zero a degree of behaviour change is critical. The Climate Change Committee reports in its 2020 report ‘Local Authorities and the Sixth Carbon Budget’ that nearly 60% of the changes in the pathway to the sixth carbon budget rely on societal or behavioural changes and notes that local authorities have a role with the public and puts us at the heart of developing and replicating local solutions.

Options for kickstarting behaviour changes are often limited by the infrastructure available, such as safe and convenient alternative ways of travelling, relying on continuing to buy expensive products which can often break with little opportunities to have them repaired, or even wishing to buy locally but not having sustainable delivery options, such as through cargo bikes and last-mile type delivery options

Many people are willing to make changes and know it is the right thing to do, but they must overcome a number of internal and external barriers which are often hardwired into habits or alternatives being expensive or unreliable. Approaches to addressing climate change must work past these barriers.

Infrastructure is typically something that supports or improves the ongoing functions of households, businesses and services. For this fund, we are looking to fund projects that add to or improve a community function to help people transition to more sustainable ways of living, below are some examples which are by no means exhaustive:

• increasing the availability of non-fossil fuel transport alternatives (Car Clubs, Bike hire, Demand Response Transport/peer to peer or volunteer-based transport solutions),

• making sharing and borrowing of items more widely available​

Projects will need to produce measurable outputs, for example, increased uptake in a low carbon/sustainable service, surveys demonstrating a change in behaviour in travel, the delivery of new infrastructure or help to enable or facilitate new infrastructure, producing feasibility studies, market assessments, proof of concept, prototyping/testing (with results). Projects with a specific deliverable, especially those delivering new infrastructure will be looked upon more favourably.

What funding is available?

Between £1000 and £25,000 can be requested from the Climate Infrastructure Fund. Projects with match funding or that lever in additional funds will be looked upon favourably, the total amount available for this fund is £100,000, and as such we will only be selecting a few projects. All funds must be spent before May 2023 with a report on outcomes expected by June 2023. Recognising the difficulty and time it takes to deliver larger projects, if a particular component of the project will take more time to be realised, this can be discussed if you are successful.

How to apply and the process

1. Firstly, you’ll need to make sure you satisfy the criteria which can be found here https://www.climatechange.southhams.gov.uk/climate-infrastructure-fund 
2. Next you’ll need to complete the expression of interest application on the same website https://www.climatechange.southhams.gov.uk/climate-infrastructure-fund  
3. Send your application and any other relevant material to climatechange@swdevon.gov.uk
4. The expression of interest window closes on 9th June 2022
5. We will then begin the selection period, we’ll try to give you a decision within a maximum of 4 weeks from the closing date.
6. If you are selected we may invite you to submit a more detailed application, this will mostly involve details surrounding project timelines, costing breakdown, key delivery dates of any events or programmes and reporting outcomes and metrics. If the Expression of interest application is detailed enough we may not need to seek further information and we will inform you of this once the decision making process is complete
7. Upon receipt of the detailed application that meets our requirements, we will release the funds in accordance with the amounts and terms applied for. Depending on the nature and scale of the project, the funds may be released in stages.