Lancashire Environmental Fund Limited

Lancashire Environmental Fund Limited is a partnership-driven grantmaker dedicated to offsetting landfill impacts through environmental enhancements that benefit both nature and communities, fostering sustainable development, ecological restoration, and equitable access to green spaces. Core values emphasize sustainability, biodiversity conservation, community engagement, heritage protection, and long-term visible impacts, guided by a philosophy of environmental offsetting via landfill tax credits to deliver public benefits. They prioritize collaborative partnerships with conservation charities, wildlife trusts, and local groups, believing enduring change arises from integrated habitat recovery, community empowerment, and nature-based solutions that strengthen ecological resilience and public wellbeing.

Thematic priorities center on biodiversity initiatives including habitat creation, natural habitat restoration, key species recovery, and wildlife reserve development; public amenity enhancements such as parks, play areas, gardens, recreational facilities, and waterways improvements promoting community access to nature; environmental restoration projects addressing degraded landscapes, green space expansion, and ecological connectivity; and heritage restoration for buildings of religious, architectural, or historical significance. They support conservation charities, wildlife trusts, community development organizations, heritage groups, and religious bodies delivering capital improvements like community gardens, nature trails, outdoor education programs, and infrastructure for species preservation. Interventions target problems like habitat loss, biodiversity decline, restricted natural access, and heritage decay, seeking outcomes of flourishing wildlife populations, inclusive green spaces, restored ecosystems, and community-led nature recovery through preventative maintenance, hands-on restoration, and access-focused activities.

Exclusions encompass core costs, unrestricted revenue funding, management fees except in exceptional cases, and projects outside landfill communities fund criteria lacking environmental or public benefit. Distinctive for its landfill tax credit exclusivity, place-based focus on Lancashire's rural landscapes, urban green corridors, and coastal habitats, and unique partnerships with county councils and wildlife agencies, LEF prioritizes grassroots conservation efforts, evidence-based ecological gains, and organizations demonstrating community-nature integration, differentiating through specialized environmental offsetting and heritage-community synergy over general philanthropy.