The Bath & West Community Energy Fund (BWCE Fund) has awarded £31,706 in funding to eleven projects in Bath and the surrounding areas.

This important grant programme helps local charitable and community organisations to reduce carbon emissions and tackle fuel poverty.

For the eighth year running, community owned Bath & West Community Energy (BWCE) has given a proportion of its surplus income from renewable energy generation to the independently run BWCE Fund for the benefit of local communities. Quartet Community Foundation administers the grant programme on behalf of the Fund.

The BWCE Fund grants go to a range of projects including those:

· Encouraging us to reduce waste, such as Bath Share & Repair

· Gardening projects, such as the new food garden at the Carers Centre B&NES

· Cutting carbon emissions from local buildings, such as the new air source heat pump at Bath City Farm.

Sophie Hooper Lea, Chair of Trustees for the Bath & West Community Energy Fund: “This is a decisive decade for climate action and the BWCE Fund is delighted to support these 11 fantastic organisations in reducing their own carbon emissions and helping local people to live in a more environmentally friendly way.

“Since 2015 the BWCE Fund grant programme administered by Quartet Community Foundation has awarded 80 grants worth over £238,000. Those grants have all gone to local organisations doing vital work to benefit our local communities as well as the environment.”

Suzanne Rolt, CEO at Quartet Community Foundation: “The Vital Signs report we published last year focused on the impact of climate change on local communities and the actions needed to reduce consumption and carbon emissions. Against a backdrop of Covid, we’ve seen that as the demand for services provided by local charities has peaked, these same charities have had less capacity to address the climate emergency.

“It’s through the additional and focused support of the BWCE Fund that they can continue to work towards the achievement of a fairer, greener society in and around Bath.”

Some of the 11 funded B&NES projects through the recent BWCE Fund grants:

£1,800 to First Steps (Bath) for work toward the replacement of a boiler heating system with a sustainable alternative.

£1,725 to FACE - Families Acting on Climate Emergency - toward building the FACE community in schools and other settings across the B&NES area, and researching needs, opportunities, barriers and triggers for climate action amongst local families.

£4,000 to Carers Centre B&NES (Care Network) to create a food garden for carers to learn to grow food and to provide food for carers to increase sustainability and food security.

£1,500 to Zero Carbon Compton for Energy Efficiency surveys for households in Compton Dando, including social housing tenants.

£1,801 to Bath Share & Repair toward the Carbon Footprint Project which will help younger children to understand how they can repair, reduce and reuse to reduce carbon emissions.

£1,880 to Corston Community Orchard & Garden to establish a rainwater harvesting, storage and distribution system to ensure there is a sustainable and sufficient water supply so that the newly planted trees and hedging can thrive.