Low Carbon Fund

The Trust recognises the importance of bringing about significant action on climate change, within the next five years, to prevent a rise in global temperatures above two degrees Celsius. Given this sense of urgency, we have made additional funding available from capital for projects and social business activities that work in the following key areas:

Preventing Deforestation

The Trust recognises the vital role that forests play in not only sequestering and storing carbon but also in the provision of ecosystem services that regulate the planet’s weather. Recognising the vital role that forests play and acutely concerned by their rapid destruction, the Trust has made grants to projects which address the issues from a number of perspectives; from the land rights of indigenous people to the value of carbon in forests as part of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) programme to highlighting and spotlighting illegal forest clearances.

Specific grants made in this area include a grant to biofuelwatch towards research and lobbying work into Europe’s biofuel policies to understand and change their impact on international ecosystems, communities, food prices and land rights and a grant to fund a Rainforest Alliance project that will develop and test a toolkit and set of training modules for communities, villages and indigenous people on forest-based carbon sequestration. The likely pilot locations are: Mexico - communities in Quintana Roo; Honduras - Tawahka communities in the Mosquitia region; and Ghana - communities in the Achichire/Sureso/Pebaseman Community Resource Management Area in the Wassa Amenfi district, Western District.

Energy Efficiency

Investment in energy efficiency is one of the most effective and lowest cost ways to reduce carbon emissions in the UK. The technologies have been proven and are easy to install but there are still barriers which stop them from being taken up.

The Ashden Trust has awarded a grant to University College London to support and enable the UK government to learn from the German experience of financing low carbon investments including domestic energy efficiency.

Cultural Shift

Work in this funding stream recognises the need for low carbon lifestyles to become the normal way of living and to catalyse this shift in behaviour using arts and the media. The 10:10 campaign has signed up thousands of people, businesses, schools and organisations who have committed to reducing their carbon emissions by 10% in a year. A grant from the Trust will improve the website and allow the organisation to hire more staff members to support people’s carbon cutting efforts.

The Ashden Trust has made a grant to the 10:10 campaign towards web development and staff costs.

Green Finance

Towards the development of financial products and services to support the transition to a low carbon economy.

Social Investment in Low Carbon Technologies

This funding stream is available as investment finance for businesses in the UK and internationally, which are responding to the global task of reducing carbon emissions and improving social welfare.