Environment Agency

The Environment Agency is a public body dedicated to protecting and enhancing England's environment for sustainable development, creating resilient places for people and wildlife amid climate change, floods, pollution, habitat loss, and ecosystem decline. Core values emphasize scientific rigour, long-term stewardship of natural resources, transparency, collaborative partnerships, and evidence-based leadership in ecological restoration and climate adaptation. Their grantmaking philosophy prioritizes systemic change through integrated regulatory, scientific, and funding approaches, believing scalable impact arises from leveraging partnerships, innovation, and replicable models blending public-private support to deliver resilient habitats, reduced risks, and public benefits.

Thematic priorities encompass flood management and resilience including large-scale flood defences, natural flood management pilots, and catchment-scale interventions protecting flood-risk communities and rural landscapes; river and coastal conservation through habitat creation, wetland restoration, and fisheries protection enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem health; water quality and resources via sustainable management schemes, pollution reduction initiatives, and discharges regulation improving freshwater habitats and public water access; waste management and contaminated land remediation addressing soil health and environmental hazards; biodiversity improvement supporting wildlife corridors, species recovery, and nature recovery networks. They fund activities like collaborative restoration projects with NGOs for bog restoration, river trust flood schemes, and innovative nature finance pilots fostering resilient ecosystems, cleaner air and water, and adaptive landscapes. Valued interventions include landscape-scale restoration, evidence-led pilots, community-engaged conservation, and preventative resilience-building for vulnerable ecosystems and populations facing environmental threats.

Exclusions cover core or unrestricted funding, activities beyond environmental protection like non-ecological social services, and initiatives outside England's catchments or statutory mandates. Distinctives include statutory integration of regulation with funding for large-scale systemic change, emphasis on scientific evidence, policy-aligned partnerships like those with wildlife trusts and philanthropies, and preference for charities delivering scalable ecological restoration, climate resilience, technical innovation, and habitat enhancement through collaborative, replicable models prioritizing biodiversity hotspots, flood-vulnerable rural and coastal communities, and ecosystem managers.