Supporting strategic projects

The Sustainable Development Fund is in addition to our local community funds and supports strategic projects in the regions where SSE Renewables is operating. It allows the benefits of our renewable energy developments to be accessible to a wider area and is directed to projects that can achieve significant impact.

We expect the fund could be worth over £57 million over the next 25 years.

The Sustainable Development Fund celebrated 10 years of delivery in November 2023. Since then, £13.5m has been invested in almost 240 community projects across the regions we operate in. An evaluation of the fund can be found here.

View the video below to hear from some of the communities that have secured funding and hear the views of the independent panel that makes awards from the fund.

Project eligibility

The Sustainable Development Fund can support projects which:

Creating opportunities – increase opportunities for education and employment
Empowering communities – build resilience and protect vulnerable residents
Building sustainable places – stimulate meaningful community regeneration

Projects in the following areas can apply:

Dumfries and Galloway
Highlands
North Lincolnshire
Perth and Kinross
Scottish Borders
South Lanarkshire

Fund timetable

Area	Status	Contact
Dumfries and Galloway	Open	Tom Black (contact details below)
Highlands	Closed - due to open in autumn 2025	Tom Black (contact details below)
North Lincolnshire	Open	Managed in partnership with North Lincolnshire Council: [email protected] T: 01724 296926
Perth and Kinross	Open	Tom Black (contact details below)
Scottish Borders	Open	Tom Black (contact details below)
South Lanarkshire	Closed – due to open autumn 2026	Lindsay Dougan (contact details below)

How to Apply

Dumfries & Galloway

View Guidance notes

If you have started a grant application and saved your progress, you can return to it by logging in to our Community Investment Portal here and navigating to My Applications.

Apply here

Perth & Kinross

View Guidance notes

If you have started a grant application and saved your progress, you can return to it by logging in to our Community Investment Portal here and navigating to My Applications.

Apply here

Scottish Borders

View Guidance notes

If you have started a grant application and saved your progress, you can return to it by logging in to our Community Investment Portal here and navigating to My Applications.

Apply here

More information

Any successful application must fit in to at least one of these areas:

Creating opportunities – Create or enhance opportunities for education and employment through activities that develop skills and improve an individual’s chance of entering the workplace.
Empowering communities – Empower communities to become more resilient and protect vulnerable residents through measures which demonstrate long-term social, environmental or economic improvements.
Sustainable places – Stimulate meaningful regeneration to improve or enhance local infrastructure, landscape, biodiversity or heritage and make a lasting difference to the places we live, work and visit.

In addition, all applications are expected to consider and demonstrate how their project supports the following overarching ambitions of the Fund Panel:

How the project will help the region in its journey towards a net zero future. For example, by improving energy efficiency, reducing waste, or delivering services in a way that reduces or removes the use of fossil fuels.
How the project will build the knowledge, skills and experience that the third sector needs to support a sustainable region. For example, by developing and enhancing social enterprises, improving the sustainability of community assets, or increasing collaboration between community projects and services.

Additional consideration will be given to projects that demonstrate:

Value for money – evidence that the project has a high local impact for the amount invested.
Community involvement – evidence that the community has been engaged in developing the project. This may be in the form of surveys, community consultations, open days or letters of support.
Financial Sustainability – evidence that the project will be maintained beyond the period of grant funding.
Contribution to local economy – evidence that the project will have a positive impact on the local economy in the long term.

Please note: The fund cannot support individuals, or groups without a constitution.

An external panel has been set up to review applications and determine which projects should receive funding. Chaired by Lord Jack McConnell, the five-strong panel has expertise in each of the three priority areas of the fund.

Rt. Hon. Lord Jack McConnell, Chairperson
Jack McConnell served as First Minister from 2001 to 2007 during which time he refreshed and launched Scotland’s international image. He established Scotland’s International Development policy; introduced the Fresh Talent initiative to encourage in-migration and a national youth volunteering programme, Project Scotland. He was appointed to the House of Lords in June 2010 and has continued his work in Africa tackling poverty, including building on the relationship between Scotland and Malawi.

Professor Jan Bebbington
Jan Bebbington is an academic specialising in sustainability. She is currently Director of Pentland Centre at the University of Lancaster. Her research interests focus around the themes of organisational responses to the global climate change agenda as well as how governance regimes for sustainable development might be developed at organisational, regional and country level.

Damien Yeates
Damien Yeates was appointed Chief Executive of Skills Development Scotland in June 2008. During the past decade he has initiated a number of highly innovative and successful programmes to promote skills and lifelong learning, including the establishment of the Digital Media Academy, the Community Technology Academy Network and the Blended Learning of Construction Skills (BLOCS) programme.

Professor James Hunter
Jim Hunter is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Between 1998 and 2004 he was chairman of Highlands and Islands Enterprise and is the author of eleven books about the region. He is also an award-winning journalist and broadcaster. Professor Hunter was made a CBE in 2001. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2007.

Stuart Hood

Stuart Hood is SSE Renewables Director of Asset Manager – Onshore. Stuart has worked in the renewables sector for over 14 years. Stuart has been pivotal to embedding many community initiatives into the SSE Renewables offering including scholarships.