In conversation with The Veolia Environmental Trust

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What is The Veolia Environmental Trust?

From accessible toilets to planting thousands of trees, to picnic areas and heating solutions…..The Veolia Environmental Trust supports it all! We're joined by Andrew Brown, Executive Director of the Trust, to learn more about what the charity does and the benefits it offers. 

 

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Start Listening

The Veolia Environmental Trust plays a vital role in supporting community and environmental projects across England.

From projects to enhance biodiversity to helping restore community facilities and make them more sustainable, the Trust supports a wide range of initiatives every year. Launched in 1997, the Trust is a registered charity established under the Landfill Communities Fund.

In this episode of 'Ask the Expert', Martyn Fuller is joined by Andrew Brown, Executive Director of the Trust. Andrew explains how the Trust provides crucial support to communities, and gives some examples of his own standout projects.

In Conversation with The Veolia Environmental Trust - Transcription

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;23;14

Speaker 1

Morning. And on a day of a momentous announcement, it's my great pleasure to be hosting another LinkedIn live. My name is Martyn Fuller. When I'm not doing this, I am the head of marketing proposals and responsible business here at Veolia in the UK. This morning I'm delighted to be joined by Andrew Brown. He's the executive director of the Veolia Environmental Trust.

 

00;00;24;13 - 00;00;41;04

Speaker 1

For those of you who may not be aware, the Veolia Environmental Trust is a registered charity that supports community and environmental projects across England. Andrew is going to be talking to me soon about the impact of the Trust's funding on the projects it supports and hopefully we'll be sharing some of his personal highlights from his time with the trust.

 

00;00;42;00 - 00;00;47;26

Speaker 1

Andrew, I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Why don't you introduce yourself this morning?

 

00;00;48;04 - 00;01;08;12

Speaker 2

MARTYN Thanks for having me on. Andrew Brown, as you mentioned, I'm the executive director of the Veolia Environmental Trust. I've been in the role just over a year now, so still quite fresh faced and kind of working things out in some respects. But I'm looking forward to telling you about what we do today.

 

00;01;09;08 - 00;01;15;06

Speaker 1

Excellent. In keeping with the day anybody resigned yet everybody else seems to be resigning.

 

00;01;16;17 - 00;01;27;03

Speaker 2

Thankfully, no one at the Trust and nobody is good. I'm hoping that you give me an easy grilling then. The Liaison Committee met yesterday.

 

00;01;27;21 - 00;01;49;25

Speaker 1

Yes. Yes. It's a momentous day, but we're stealing the limelight for the next 20 minutes or so. Andrew, I'm going to get straight to the questions because I think this is going to be one of those conversations that runs and runs. I've got to ask you first about what the environmental trust does and the kind of projects that it supports, because I'm sure a lot of people watching this back may not know.

 

00;01;51;02 - 00;02;22;29

Speaker 2

Yeah. Thanks. Well, yeah. So the trust, as you mentioned, we're a registered charity and we're a grant making charity that distributes funding from something called the Landfill Communities Fund. And that fund was set up back in 1996. And the idea is that money from landfill tax, a proportion of that is given to us as a charity to enable us to fund projects in the vicinity of landfill sites.

 

00;02;23;00 - 00;02;43;22

Speaker 2

So the aim of the fund is to give something back to communities who have to live near a long long time. And so obviously all of our funding comes from Veolia and we distribute about 5 million per year to community environmental projects.

 

00;02;44;25 - 00;02;47;19

Speaker 1

And that's quite a significant amount, isn't it? 5 million?

 

00;02;47;28 - 00;03;12;12

Speaker 2

Yeah, it is. I mean, it varies a little bit because it's kind of dependent on landfill claims and so on. But it's roughly somewhere between a million and a million and a half per quarter. Well, over the years, I think since we came into existence back in 1997, we've awarded somewhere in the region of 95 million to about 2500 projects.

 

00;03;12;13 - 00;03;14;06

Speaker 2

So it's pretty, pretty significant. Yeah.

 

00;03;14;23 - 00;03;20;03

Speaker 1

Yeah. Fabulous. And what kind of projects is receiving that funding then?

 

00;03;20;26 - 00;03;55;16

Speaker 2

It's a really broad range, actually, and that's quite a challenge for us as a grant maker because, you know, we fund quite a lot of different stuff. So we fund things like nature reserves, parks, community gardens, things like that, right through to things like sports clubs and community buildings, like village halls and community centres and yeah, and a lot of those projects are delivered by sort of small grassroots community groups.

 

00;03;55;16 - 00;04;00;07

Speaker 2

So it's real, it's really kind of on the ground funding usually.

 

00;04;01;13 - 00;04;25;29

Speaker 1

That's fantastic. So it really is in the heart of the communities and supporting, you know, a range there from sports clubs to wildlife areas to habitats. I know there's this one not too far from me, and it's always nice when I go for a walk through the wooded area there. The logo is there on the other side of the gate post and that always makes me smile.

 

00;04;25;29 - 00;04;26;26

Speaker 1

Always makes me smile.

 

00;04;27;07 - 00;04;45;13

Speaker 2

Yeah. And everyone I know who works in funding, we're all kind of logo nerds, you know, the first thing we do when we go anywhere, we're not enjoying where we go. We're looking for who funded it. And he's got the plaque on the gate and it's a place that always finds it.

 

00;04;45;14 - 00;05;02;08

Speaker 1

Yeah, you've got to have a hobby. Andrew keeps saying you mentioned the types of projects, but I'm wondering, you know, yes, the plaques are there, but what's the impact? What's happening because of these projects? What sort of things would be facilitated?

 

00;05;02;26 - 00;05;38;29

Speaker 2

Um, it's a lot, a lot of stuff actually. So a lot of their boards, we make relatively small, between 10,070 £5,000. Um, but we do vacation you make larger grants sometimes around half a million pounds to larger projects. And those large projects tend to be things like landscape scale biodiversity projects. And those obviously have a huge impact on things like habitat creation, species preservation and carbon reduction, things like that.

 

00;05;39;14 - 00;06;11;20

Speaker 2

But those small projects that I mentioned, they're small grants, they can make a massive difference too, because if you think of now, you think of a grassroots community group who come together. They've got an issue in that community that they want to solve. A grant of £10,000 to a group like that can be transformative. It can be the catalyst that kind of shows that community, community that action is possible so it can get them started and give them the resources to make their neighbourhood a better place.

 

00;06;11;29 - 00;06;24;08

Speaker 2

So, we always see, you know, what we think of as small amounts of money because we distribute millions per year to the communities we fund. The impact is huge.

 

00;06;25;11 - 00;06;49;25

Speaker 1

Yeah. That just hearing that reminded me of Antoine Farrow and one of his messages, you know, and he's he often talks. I'll talk to you before Estelle about Violia's purpose and purpose was to be you know to be useful. And certainly, this is another really great example of how we're useful to the society in the community we work and live in.

 

00;06;49;25 - 00;07;06;23

Speaker 1

So it's really quite impressive to hear that you mentioned, you know, the scale of the projects, but, you know, so many stand out projects for you, you know, you've been involved with our youths and, you know, the funding has been granted over the years. Anything stands out for you.

 

00;07;07;11 - 00;07;13;27

Speaker 2

Yeah. I thought you might ask. Asked me that. I've got on, I've got a list as long as my arm so I'm okay.

 

00;07;13;27 - 00;07;14;28

Speaker 1

Well you know we've got time.

 

00;07;15;22 - 00;07;37;22

Speaker 2

To take some of them. No, I think that's the thing actually when you work in grantmaking you see a lot of projects and they're all good because they're all kind of important in different ways. But every now and again, something really kind of springs to mind. And there's one stop, one that's in the forefront of my mind, mainly because I went to visit them last week.

 

00;07;38;05 - 00;08;08;29

Speaker 2

It's pretty dark in London, and it's a project that we funded back in 2019 to an organisation called the Gasworks Dock Partnership, and we awarded them about £340,000. And that funding is to create a visitor centre and community venue at that site in the Docklands area. And it's a real you know, it's a former industrial area. It was a proper working dock in the centre of London.

 

00;08;08;29 - 00;08;44;21

Speaker 2

It's actually on the River Lea, which nobody seems to have ever heard of. But it's a tributary of the temples. And they've been turning that site into a community space. So there's a community garden. They've done loads of work to make it a haven for wildlife by planting and protecting reed beds along the river. And they've created a footpath along the river linking up other nature reserves and making it kind of a leisure area for the local community.

 

00;08;45;00 - 00;09;16;13

Speaker 2

But I think the thing that really struck me about it was that it's such a community volunteer led project. The whole community is involved both in, you know, doing some of the kind of building work that's going on, but also providing activities and events there. And so, you know, if you've been to London lately, you've probably noticed that there's building work going on everywhere, development everywhere.

 

00;09;16;24 - 00;09;49;14

Speaker 2

And so communities, I think, can sometimes feel a bit dwarfed by all of that sort of commercial activity. But what this group is doing is finding links with those developers to make sure that biodiversity is looked after in any development and the community needs a thought about. So it's a really good project for linking up everything that's going on in that area of London and protecting that space for the community and for wildlife.

 

00;09;49;14 - 00;09;57;13

Speaker 2

And that's what we're about. That community and the wildlife biodiversity link.

 

00;09;57;13 - 00;10;09;13

Speaker 1

That sounds really impressive. You mentioned though, you've got a list as long as your arm. Have you got another one that you could talk to us about and enthuse me about? I'm desperate to get down there to see that. But tell me another one.

 

00;10;09;23 - 00;10;34;19

Speaker 2

Yeah. Okay. So another one is the northern forest and this was a grant of £600,000 that we gave to the Woodland Trust a few years back. And now the reason why I find this one particularly interesting is because it's doing something that not a lot of other funders are massively interested in doing, and that is protecting existing woodland.

 

00;10;35;16 - 00;11;10;05

Speaker 2

So obviously, you know, lots of people are very keen on tree planting and creating new forests and that's great and it's really important, especially in terms of climate change and biodiversity. But what sometimes gets forgotten about is the need to protect those existing woodlands. And that the Woodland Trust published a report not so long ago showing that actually the estate of Woodlands in the UK is pretty poor in terms of the health of those forests and biodiversity.

 

00;11;10;18 - 00;11;38;06

Speaker 2

So our funding has gone into numerous sites across the north of England to do things like improve the quality of the woodland, but also to improve public access. So you've got that link reestablished between communities and nature on their doorstep. So they see the value in it, they look after it, they value it. And so I really like that particular project as well.

 

00;11;39;10 - 00;11;57;24

Speaker 1

That's a Yorkshireman. Yes. I have to say I like that one too. That's something. This is the one that's going to effectively link from Liverpool to Hull with a nature corridor, which, you know, when you think about it, that's just such a future to provide isn't it.

 

00;11;58;14 - 00;12;22;03

Speaker 2

Yeah. And so our funding is just part of what's going on. There's a much bigger project with the trust to do exactly what you said, to kind of link up those areas. And I think that that's one thing that's becoming increasingly important is, you know, we've got pockets of habitat across the UK, but they are divided up by motorways and roads and housing estates and so on.

 

00;12;22;14 - 00;12;28;19

Speaker 2

So there's a real need to start linking those up so that biodiversity doesn't suffer.

 

00;12;29;27 - 00;12;57;26

Speaker 1

That's just great. And so how crucial do you think an organised nation like games like the early environmentalist is for supporting communities? We made light of the current situation at the start of this week, which is we've got, remember, people who are affected by these things. We're in a difficult time, not just difficult times in terms of, I guess, what's at the top of the news feeds at the moment.

 

00;12;57;26 - 00;13;11;13

Speaker 1

We've got biodiversity collapse. You've mentioned biodiversity several times, we've got climate change, we've got issues like that as well as the financial, the trust. I'm beginning to think it plays a really big part. What's your thoughts on that?

 

00;13;12;07 - 00;13;38;25

Speaker 2

Yeah, I like to think that we do. I think what we're seeing at the moment is community groups and charities really struggling to get important projects off the ground because I mean, you know, the fundraising environment for small charities was tough before the cost of living crisis. Now it's really difficult because those groups you know, they want to improve something in their community.

 

00;13;39;19 - 00;14;06;05

Speaker 2

I think it's going to cost a certain amount of money. They go away and get everybody on board and they fill in the wrong applications and stuff. And that takes six months. And in that time, costs have doubled. So what communities are finding is they get everybody excited about something happening and then it can't go forward and that really kind of loses that community by and so yeah.

 

00;14;06;05 - 00;14;34;09

Speaker 2

So you know we're finding our funding is becoming really crucial to those kinds of groups. But it's not just about the money. I think what we try and do at the Trust is to find ways to support applicants in other ways. So by being as flexible as we possibly can and that's quite difficult within the Landfill Communities Fund because there are quite a few rules and regulations about what the fund, what the funding can be spent on.

 

00;14;34;09 - 00;15;10;13

Speaker 2

It can't be spent on. But we try to be fun way, the sort of human face that kind of understands communities rather than just being a cash machine. And so, so part of that really part of that additional support is not just looking at what we can provide, but looking at that kind of funding community development landscape as a whole, working out who we can work with, whom we can partner with, to provide support with things like awareness raising and education and project expertise, stuff that we can't necessarily to ourselves.

 

00;15;10;21 - 00;15;22;13

Speaker 2

But those communities need to get their projects moving. So it's about I know it's a bit of a cliche phrase, but it's about joining up funding rather than just dishing out cash.

 

00;15;23;23 - 00;15;49;14

Speaker 1

Fabulous. I Andrew, you're clearly passionate about this subject and I think you'd have to be tipped to do the job you're doing to that, the success you're achieving and the impact we're having. And thank you for that. Thank you. But it must affect you. There must be times when you're sitting down for tea and the fish fingers and chips have been placed in front of you.

 

00;15;49;14 - 00;15;59;02

Speaker 1

Things will affect you personally, you know, as anything potentially changes your outlook and how communities can thrive.

 

00;15;59;02 - 00;16;21;27

Speaker 2

Yeah it's you know been quite humbling joining the trust because prior to that I work for a larger fund and I think sometimes when you've worked in grant making for a long time, you can start to think that you know what communities want, you know, about their problems because you've heard about them or you've you know, you've seen a focus group or a report or something like that.

 

00;16;22;04 - 00;16;48;04

Speaker 2

What the trust has really shown me, because it brought me closer to the applicant and the projects we fund, it's reminded me that every community is different. They all have different needs, they all have different priorities and challenges. And the important thing is to get out from behind your desk and go and listen to those communities to make sure that your grant making meets those requirements.

 

00;16;48;04 - 00;17;33;24

Speaker 2

So I think that's been my biggest realisation. It's remembering that grantmaking is not just a job. It's about the people who are going to benefit from the funding. So you've got to stay linked with them in any way you can. And just one of the you know, one of the thing about the personal sort of impact and this is one people in grant making sometimes forget about as well, is what a great job, what a dream job to be able to come in to work and give money away, you know, to projects that are tackling the climate and nature emergencies, projects that are improving community wellbeing.

 

00;17;34;04 - 00;17;53;09

Speaker 2

We get to give money away and there's not many people who are in that privileged position. So I often remind myself that I don't need a fish finger and over dinner, every now and again, I do kind of have to remind myself, God, what a great job it is to be able to do that.

 

00;17;54;26 - 00;18;21;27

Speaker 1

It's fabulous. Well, I'm a fan of the fish finger. I'm afraid so. I'll eat your share. That's great. You know, so grateful that you sharing that insight with us, you know, and I'm I think it's really refreshing and at least good to know I'm going to be good for the people, you know, anybody who's going to be applying for funding to know that that's the outlook, that's the approach, that's the ambition, and you're grateful for having that opportunity.

 

00;18;21;27 - 00;18;35;26

Speaker 1

I think it's really refreshing. So really refreshing to hear that we talked about people and there's a question that has come in that I need to ask and that's, you know, where do people go to get more information about potentially funding their projects?

 

00;18;37;04 - 00;18;48;28

Speaker 2

So the obvious one is to go to our website, which is the only truth dot org and just double check whether that's a slot.

 

00;18;48;28 - 00;18;51;22

Speaker 1

Remembering your own phone number, isn't it? You never let yourself.

 

00;18;52;11 - 00;19;22;11

Speaker 2

Go across the org and all the information's on there. But what I, what I would say and this, that this kind of harks back to what I was just saying about staying connected with it is better to pick up the phone and give us a ring to talk through your project before you apply. Because what we find is people read the guidance documents, they maybe find things that are a bit unclear or where they're not sure if that project fits.

 

00;19;22;11 - 00;19;49;25

Speaker 2

And they say, Well, we'll put in an application anyway and see what happens. But approach is very, very rarely successful with any funder. So we always recommend giving us a call, telling us what your project is. We'll give you an honest assessment of whether that's likely to be funded because it's really competitive. We always receive many, many more applications than we can fund.

 

00;19;51;12 - 00;20;13;25

Speaker 2

So give us a call or drop us an email to sort of talk it through first. And that raises the chances of success. A great deal. A website is the first port of call and use our postcode checker on that because we can only fund in certain areas due to that thing about the vicinity of a landfill site.

 

00;20;13;25 - 00;20;16;02

Speaker 2

So use that postcode checker first.

 

00;20;16;28 - 00;20;39;24

Speaker 1

That's great advice. And what we'll do is we'll make sure that we take that link and that information and we'll post that as a comment underneath this recording. I've got one more question for you, Andrew, and it's always the last question. You ask somebody what's next? What's going to happen for the earlier environmental trust in the rest of 2022 and beyond?

 

00;20;40;14 - 00;21;03;18

Speaker 2

I'm glad you asked that, because actually one of the things I was asked to do when I started The Trust was to review our strategy. So we've just been through a major strategic review and as you probably will have already picked up, the result of that is going to be devoting much more of our funding to climate action and biodiversity projects.

 

00;21;03;18 - 00;21;32;13

Speaker 2

So we've always funded nature related projects, but it's just bringing it back to our environmental groups. We called the Veolia Environment Trust, so we want projects that both help communities but also tackle climate change and biodiversity. So you see a lot more, more from us on that and that's obviously really aligned with the only vision of ecological transformation.

 

00;21;32;13 - 00;22;10;16

Speaker 2

So everything, everything makes sense there. But we're also one key thing that we're looking at doing is making our application processes more accessible and making diversity, equity and inclusion a real core plank of our approach. I'll be honest, it's really difficult to make it to get this right. I've seen lots of grant makers really struggle with how you make your application process touch and accessible but still get all the information you need to make a good, robust decision.

 

00;22;11;04 - 00;22;37;06

Speaker 2

So that's something we're going to be working a lot on over the coming couple of years. Also looking at how we can find opportunities to give grassroots communities a greater say in the projects funded in their area. Because I think all our research shows that sort of top down projects where, you know, an organisation kind of parachutes in and does something for the community, it's not sustainable.

 

00;22;37;08 - 00;23;03;29

Speaker 2

It's got to kind of come from the bottom up. Communities have got to be invested in it. And that starts from us as well. So we want to find ways to involve communities in doing all of that and probably the final thing is measuring our impact a bit better. So, you know, all funders are very good at talking about how much money they've given out.

 

00;23;04;13 - 00;23;39;07

Speaker 2

What we're not brilliant at doing is looking at long term impacts. So, very shortly we'll be doing some communications with the help of your colleagues in Veolia about projects that we funded ten years ago. So we've got one, another Yorkshire one. You'll be pleased to know, Martyn, that we've got the iPhone app up in West Yorkshire, which was a Yorkshire project, and that we funded to create a sort of community educational resource.

 

00;23;39;07 - 00;24;00;21

Speaker 2

And it's a sort of eco-friendly building and they run cool. We're trying to do a lot more of that where we look back at what we funded, we look at the impact it had and we use that to show what we're about and the kind of things that we want to fund. So you can expect a lot more of that kind of thing from us.

 

00;24;00;22 - 00;24;07;19

Speaker 2

And hopefully I say, you can expect a lot of your team to have helped us with that. So I'm hoping you think that's a good idea.

 

00;24;08;06 - 00;24;11;21

Speaker 1

I do. It's the one in Huddersfield, isn't it?

 

00;24;11;21 - 00;24;22;13

Speaker 2

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's sterling nature. I don't know the area brilliantly myself. It's a sterling nature reserve. It's actually part of a nature reserve. And it's an old bomb. It's called the Create Bond.

 

00;24;23;17 - 00;24;46;14

Speaker 1

I'm familiar with it. It's a fabulous project and a fabulous part of the world. Obviously, all the best people to bond with in all five miles of the apparently Andrew it's been now I can't believe we're approaching the half hour mark and I'm going to have to stop the conversation that I really enjoyed hearing from you.

 

00;24;46;14 - 00;25;10;22

Speaker 1

I think it's been really interesting and I'm sure there'll be a lot of reaction in the community about it. So thank you very much for your time. Thanks for explaining that to us. Everything about the Veolia Environmental Trust, I'm sure advertisement for what's coming next for our coming next which is the next LinkedIn live which is going to take place on Thursday the 21st of July at lunchtime.

 

00;25;10;22 - 00;25;38;19

Speaker 1

It's bringing your own packed lunch linked in life. I'm going to be talking to Heather Foster who is our sector lead for healthcare, education and the public sector. Veolia, UK. We're going to be talking about decarbonization. This is a great topic. It's one that is very, very close to my heart. And again, just like we've heard today, it's going to be something that I'm sure is going to have a powerful impact on anybody who can spend the time with us.

 

00;25;39;08 - 00;25;41;05

Speaker 1

Thank you, Andrew, and good luck.

 

00;25;41;28 - 00;25;42;10

Speaker 2

Thanks.


 


Give Me More

 

Revisiting projects 10 years later

We revisited some of the projects funded by The Veolia Environmental Trust over a decade on, to see how the funding created value. Two of these projects are as follows:

 

  • In 2011, the Trust awarded £100,000 to Ideal for All, a user-led charity and social enterprise based in the West Midlands. This funding supported Ideal for All to create Barlow Road Community Garden, a valuable space providing health and wellbeing benefits for local residents.
  • Also in 2011, the Trust awarded £300,000 to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust to fund the creation of the Cre8 Barn. Part of the Stirley nature reserve, which spans 240 acres and is located in West Yorkshire, the Cre8 Barn provides an educational facility for schools and community groups. Find out more in the video below.

Find out more about the Veolia Environmental Trust.