A sustainable natural environment is fundamental to a healthy and prosperous society. Continuing and expanding on thirty years of science, environmental and conservation funding, the Sustainable pillar responds to the global focus on urgent issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss.  

The Environment program supports ambitious and transformative environmental initiatives, including:

• Strengthening the environment sector

• Applied environmental science research

• On ground conservation of natural resources and preservation of threatened biodiversity and ecosystems.

The Foundation is interested in applications that are strategically important, nationally significant, and highly collaborative. This funding area considers large grants ($100,000+ and multi-year) for work taking place within Australia and across multiple areas including land, freshwater, marine, and coastal.

The Environment program area supports ambitious and transformative environmental initiatives, in particular:

• Strengthening the capacity, reach and impact of the environment sector

• The application of translational or operational research into biodiversity conservation and nature restoration, including frameworks that consider social values and behaviour change

• On-ground conservation of nationally important or threatened biodiversity and ecosystems.

Those initiatives should seek to manage better our natural resources and preserve threatened biodiversity and ecosystems in the face of challenges such as land degradation, limited water resources, invasive species, and climate change.

The Foundation is interested in applications that are strategically important, nationally significant, and collaborative.

We prioritise projects that employ several of the following approaches:

• Work collaboratively with multiple stakeholders.

• Enhance the capacity of the broader environment sector beyond the applicant organisation.

• Take an ecosystem or landscape-scale approach.

• Adopt a community-based approach where relevant.

• Develop or incorporate a strong scientific evidence base.

• Develop translational frameworks and/or strategies that can be adapted and implemented widely.

• Adopt nature-positive or nature-based solutions.

For research projects, preference will be given to projects that engage early or mid-career researchers.

• Such projects must be strongly supported by their host organisation and be strategically aligned to the institution's mission.

• A maximum of three applications may be submitted by a university in each grant round.