Priority area: Community sustainability projects

Beginning in 2018, the Vancity enviroFund™ will be providing grants to projects that help our communities to consume in a sustainable way by reusing resources, and making it easier - and more affordable – to avoid buying and using products we don’t really need.

Examples of the kinds of projects we’ll support include:

• Organizations that are redefining the ‘good life’ by focusing on wellbeing – happy, healthy lives that support the things that move away from materialism to the things that matter most – our friends and family ties, our service to society and civic engagement, our sense of trust, our capacity to meet our basic needs, and our health.
• Organizations that take the lead in fixing things that are broken (like electronics, appliances and machines, furniture, bicycles, shoes and clothing, sporting goods, buildings and much more) so that they can be used and enjoyed again for years to come.
• Organizations that find upstream solutions to address high amounts of waste (including addressing food waste, reusing materials from renovating and deconstructing homes and other buildings, transforming our relationship to textiles including supporting used clothing and shoes, redesigning products and services, shifting demand and much more) created in our communities every day.
• Organizations that upcycle resources (e.g. Wood, paper, plastics, metals, fabrics and textiles, and much more) so that they can be used again.
• Organisations that create opportunities for collective action (neighbourhood initiatives, workplace initiatives that support employees and customers living lighter lives, faith community initiatives) that foster more sustainable communities.
• Organizations that accommodate diversity in sustainable ways of living across ethnicity, age, gender, income, education, geography, and more.
• Organizations that advance the cultural context for low-footprint and lighter ways of living including through transformative arts and communications approaches, trendsetting, and creating social movements that support deep value and mindset shifts.

What’s most important to us is that your project is local, that it’s innovative, and that it responds to a need in your community.