Grants Available for Your Business

Going green may be good for your business – not to mention the planet – but the fact remains that making the necessary changes costs money and for a small business, grants can often provide the vital assistance to make it possible.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find your way around the world of grants – and with no single source of eco-grants, working out what you may be able to apply for from the different institutions that make awards can often seem daunting.

Between small business grants, government schemes, development funds, EU initiatives, capital programmes and bursaries – all of which have their own set of rules for eligibility and are intended for different purposes – it’s enough to make anyone’s head spin!

Fortunately, there are a few ways to take the headache out of the whole thing and – with luck – end up with some of the sort of financial help you really need.

What’s Available

Although the general priorities are the same across the country – energy, waste management and green transport being high on the list – the amounts, conditions and even the name of the grant programmes can be different.

As you might expect in the current generally eco-friendly business climate, the sorts of projects eligible for funding are fairly wide and while, for example, insulation grants are still a mainstay of energy efficiency, the likes of carbon neutral web-hosting can now be considered too.

While some grants and sources of funding are nationally available, others are aimed at particular areas. Barclays Commercial Bank, for instance, offers Green Cashback Loans – a scheme giving back up to £50,000 to small businesses which are borrowing to finance green initiatives, which is available nationally.

In Scotland, the Leader programme provides government financial assistance to support businesses in the country’s rural communities, while small businesses in South London can get “Green Business Grants” from Merton Chamber of Commerce to improve their energy efficiency.

The Regional Development Agencies and many County or local councils can often have particular grants available and individual industry sectors also frequently have their own sources of finance for green projects. Businesses in country areas, for example, may be able to benefit from the likes of the Rural Enterprise Investment Programme, while those running building firms may qualify for help from a Construction Waste Capital Grant from the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP).

People trying to develop green technologies are also catered for, the Carbon Trust supporting environmental research with a grant worth a maximum of £250k – to cover 60% of the costs – to anyone lucky enough to qualify.

Your situation may be slightly different. ask a question below ↓ and our editorial team will reply with our advice.

Getting Some Help

While knowing what’s on offer is half the battle – in the world of grants, nothing is quite that straightforward! With some types of grants being local, others regional, while still more apply to the constituent parts of the UK, the UK as a whole or may be Europe-wide, it doesn’t take long to realise that sometimes you’re going to need a bit of expert help.

The good news is that there are plenty of people to give you sound impartial advice, ranging from the likes of the DTI and DEFRA to your own Regional Development Agency or local chamber of commerce. In addition, depending on the nature of your particular business, many of the trade bodies and professional institutions can also help.

Never be afraid to take up any of their offers of free or highly subsidised consultations or reviews; it could end up saving you a fortune – and a whole lot of time and stress too.

Sometimes it’s even worth being a bit cheeky – and asking your energy supplier, water company, local council and so on if they have any grants that you might be eligible to get. They can only say no and you never know, you might just be lucky – and even if they don’t have any hard cash to give you, they might be able to help you in other ways.

Navigating the grant system can sometimes seem an endless task, especially if you’re trying to run a business at the same time, but if you’re prepared to do a little bit of research and not afraid of asking for some help when you need it, it doesn’t have to be an impossible one.