Tellus Mater Foundation

About Tellus Mater

The Tellus Mater Foundation is a grant-making trust that supports leaders to put in place  a low impact future. We do this by providing grant funding to forward-thinking organisations with cutting-edge ideas that will change the rules of the game. We seek innovative solutions to shift political, economic, and financial institutions to a sustainable path.

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Recent Grant Awards

Sheila McKechnie Foundation

Environmental Campaigner Award

The Sheila McKechnie Awards support leading campaigners to make major impacts on policies, legislation and public attitudes across a range of social and environmental issues. The Environmental Campaigner Award is aimed at individuals campaigning on progressive environmental issues, from promoting local recycling to fighting global deforestation. It allows new and emerging grassroots campaigners to receive intensive training and coaching to be more effective to address sustainability challenges.

European Climate Foundation

Energy Efficiency Campaign

Energy efficiency is the most cost-effective means for reducing the UK€™s domestic CO2 emissions. The ECF Energy Efficiency Programme promotes this approach by supporting policies that shrink the amount of energy consumed in the built environment. The campaign promotes regulatory measures and financial incentives that lead to the construction and retrofit of net-zero or low-energy buildings.

Forum for the Future

Gatecrashing the Energy Sector

A pilot project to identify and support disruptive innovation in the energy sector. The aim is to help accelerate the creation of a sustainable energy system by finding and encouraging new ideas. We need ideas that challenge us to completely rethink the energy system and drive behavioural change. We cannot rely on existing technology to deliver change at the scale and speed that is required.

Carbon Leapfrog

Carbon Leapfrog, an innovative new charity that mobilises free professional advice to help low carbon projects overcome the challenges faced by early-stage enterprises, has received an initial seed funding grant from the Tellus Mater Foundation. The grant will enable Carbon Leapfrog to set up a small executive team and expand its operations to support an increasing number of UK-based low carbon initiatives with legal, financial, accounting and engineering expertise. Tellus Mater believes the organisation has the potential to make a difference in the fight against climate change by building an extensive pro bono professional network from across 20+ disciplines to help low carbon enterprises achieve greater scale.

WWF-UK

The Finance Innovation Lab

The Finance Innovation Lab is a network of professionals hosted by WWF-UK and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) to advance cutting-edge ideas for a financial system that creates economic, social and environmental value. This partnership for change brings together a diverse range of institutions and individuals from business, finance, government and civil society to incubate new projects and initiatives to shift finance to a more sustainable, long-term path. Tellus Mater has provided seed grant funding to allow this innovative early-stage project to continue to develop and scale its operations. The foundation is pleased to support a ground-breaking initiative that has the potential to bring together innovators from across multiple sectors to re-think the function of financial institutions.

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Latest News

Recent Technical Problems

Tellus Mater has recently been experiencing some technical difficulties. We apologize if you have had emails bounced back or had any difficulty accessing this website. The issue has now been resolved. Please feel free to email kelly@tellusmater.org.uk with any questions or queries. Many thanks!

Sheila McKechnie Environmental Campaigner Award 2011

Sponsored by Tellus Mater, the Environmental Campaigner Award is now open to individuals engaged in progressive environmental campaigns with the potential to make major impacts on the social, economic and political institutions that drive many sustainable challenges. The award committee are particularly interested in applicants who are forward-thinking, innovative and have cutting-edge ideas that will change the rules of the game. To find out more, visit the Shelia McKechnie Foundation website. You must submit an application by 1pm on Monday 20th June 2011.

Creating Low Carbon Communities

Carbon Leapfrog hosted the first Creating Low Carbon Communities conference at the Guildhall in London on 21 March to provide the key steps and know-how for community-based projects to raise capital for local renewable power projects. Combining keynote speeches and case-study presentations with practical seminars and training sessions, workshops will highlight the array of professional support available to help community-based projects overcome any obstacles they may face.

Economics of Nature

A joint IUCN and Carbon Leapfrog conference: 'The Economics of Nature: taking stock, sharing action' was held on Thursday 16th November 2010 at City Point, London to engage actors from across the banking, legal, and insurance industries. The conference looked at the financial, legal, and environmental issues related to meeting the global challenges of the recent TEEB report on the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity. A link to the conference programme is available, along with a very interesting short film of the key outcomes of the day produced by Footprint TV.

The Biosphere Economy

Volans Ventures launched a cutting-edge report on the Biosphere Economy, to examine innovations and new business models responding to global ecological overshoot and changing the way business, investors, and governments value and manage natural capital. Launched on the 22-23 April to an audience of business leaders at the Business 4 Environment conference in Seoul, the report maps a future in which business, finance and politics increasingly take account of natural capital and related forms of value. Around the world, a growing array of innovators is experimenting with possible solutions to resource depletion and eco-system destruction.

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