Nature in the City: Cooling Your Suburb Grants
Nature in the City: Cooling Your Suburb Grants improve the urban landscape by supporting healthy and resilient living infrastructure projects that use nature-based approaches. Grants of up to $50,000 are available for projects including those that reduce urban heat islands and increase natural shade, demonstrate innovative urban cooling or retain or reuse rainwater to increase vegetation and recharge ground water.
Funding of up to $10,000 is also available for pilots or feasibility studies for innovative project types that have not been widely implemented in the ACT (such as installing green facades on or near existing buildings).
Applications for Round 5 (2024) are now closed.
About the program
Nature in the City: Cooling Your Suburb Grants of up to $50,000 are available for projects that demonstrate a public or community benefit through:
- Reducing urban heat islands and increasing access to shade through nature-based means
- Demonstrating an innovative approach to achieving urban cooling
- Improving water penetration by retaining and/or reusing rainwater to increase vegetation growth and recharging ground water or increasing overall surface permeability, or
- Bringing together community stakeholders that can demonstrate a capacity to maintain a project's cooling benefits over a longer time-period.
Projects could include a combination of tree-planting and the installation of a shading structure, installing green trellises, replacing hotter materials (e.g. gravel bed) with living infrastructure such as shrubs or groundcover, or developing a set of swales to improve water retention.
Who can take part
You can apply for the grant if you are:
- an individual
- an incorporated or non-incorporated organisation
- a business.
How to apply
Applications for the current round of funding have now closed.
View the guidelines for the previous round: Nature in the City - Cooling Your Suburb Grants Guidelines [4.5 MB] for more information.
Information on future rounds will be available on this page.
Cost
It's free to apply for the grant.
Why it's important
Climate change is already affecting Canberra. On average, the ACT's climate is becoming hotter and drier. Impacts include higher temperatures and longer and more frequent heatwaves. As a result, Canberrans are increasingly suffering from the "urban heat island effect". This occurs when surfaces such as pavements, roads and buildings absorb the sun's heat and radiate it back, increasing surface temperatures day and night by up to up to 10-15°C. As Canberra densifies, supporting urban cooling projects throughout the city is becoming increasingly urgent.
Along with many other benefits, living infrastructure can help reduce this heat island effect, supporting our city to cope with the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events.
Previous funding rounds
For details of previous funding rounds and for information about the ACT Environmental Grants Program visit www.environment.act.gov.au.
Acknowledgement of Country
We acknowledge the Ngunnawal people as traditional custodians of the ACT and recognise any other people or families with connection to the lands of the ACT and region. We acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this city and this region.