The Lush Regenerative Fund, or Re:Fund
Since 2018
The Regenerative Fund, or Re:Fund, was launched in 2018, and is the evolution of the Sustainable Lush (SLush) Fund.
The Re:Fund was born out of the desire to move beyond ‘Sustainability’, toward environmental and social ‘Regeneration’.
The Re:Fund spans three areas of giving: Disaster & Displacement; Permaculture & Agroecology; Rewilding & Biodiversity. Each Re:Fund Circle has a co-ordinator and a decision making committee.
Within the Re:Fund also sits a biennial award called the Spring Prize. The Spring Prize is the Re:Fund’s public facing award, whereas the three Re:Fund Circles are currently by invitation only through our existing networks.
Within Spring Prize sits a new research project called the Springboard, which aims to analyse the global regenerative network to find leverage points of support.
The Displacement & Disaster fund addresses the needs of communities that have been impacted by conflict or environmental crises, whether they had to resettle away from home or rebuild their lives in their places of origin. By working with existing, native, small organisations, the D&D fund supports the use of regenerative and community-led practices within the intersecting humanitarian and development sectors.
Changing the ways of our agriculture and land-based businesses is one of the most important tasks of our time. The Permaculture & Agroecology fund supports demonstration sites to show what it is possible, capacity building so people can master how to do it, and entrepreneurship so that financially viable, socially just and ecologically sounds businesses can sprout up.
Rewilding & Biodiversity is about supporting life (wildlife), and people’s love of life, through protecting and restoring damaged and threatened habitats and species, and supporting healthy relationships between people and wider nature. It’s about welcoming the wild.
Examples of projects
D&D – Green ReLeaf
Using Permaculture and peacebuilding methods, Green ReLeaf work across the Philippines to support communities who were displaced by violence or environmental crises. Their two primary projects support internally displaced peoples (IDPs) who suffered from religious extremist attacks in Marawi, and IDPs who had their homes destroyed by Typhoon Haima.
P&A – Karambi
Karambi Group of People with Disabilities (KaGPWD) works to empower persons with disabilities and promote regenerative solutions for food security in western Uganda. Their work includes the delivery of permaculture training in schools and with community groups, and more broadly promoting permaculture techniques for food security, environmental protection, fighting malnutrition and poverty in their region.
R&B – Guyra Paraguay
What little remains of the Atlantic forests (5%) are considered second only to the Amazon in biodiversity. Guyra Paraguay is trying to save the second largest fragment remaining in Paraguay, and the most threatened: the 73,000ha ‘San Rafael National Park’ by reforesting 15ha of degraded land, planting 12,000 native trees, supporting the land rights of the Mby´a Guarani people and improving security in the forest.
The Spring Prize
The Lush Spring Prize is a biennial fund which awards £200,000 to a diverse array of organisations from around the world that are working towards environmental and social regeneration.
With each prize, awards have been given to 11 projects within four categories: Intentional Projects, Young Projects and Established Projects, as well as an ‘Influence Award’ which seeks to fund groups that have a wide impact in the regenerative field and beyond.
Follow The Spring Prize on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
The detail
Ethical Consumer
The Lush Spring Prize is facilitated and co-ordinated in partnership with Ethical Consumer, an independent, not-for-profit co-operative based in Manchester, UK.
Springboard
The Springboard is a small fund and research initiative, aimed at exploring the wider regenerative network. Through working with and analysing previous Spring Prize applicants, we begin to gain insights as to where we can make the best possible impact through our funding and support.
References →
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