Esmée Fairbairn Foundation

We can’t protect the ocean without looking after our rivers and inland waters too. The Esmée Fairbairn is helping us scale up our focus on inland water quality.

Founded in 1961, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation is one of the UK’s largest independent funders. We have received current funding under their Space for Nature programme, within their ‘Clean and healthy freshwater’ impact goal.

This funding creates a critical opportunity for SAS to scale up our water quality work. With the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation’s help, we’re empowering communities across the UK with the knowledge and tools to take action to protect not just our coastal waters, but inland waters too.

We are strengthening our ambitious water quality programme in order to bring about long term change. Our goals include:

• Extending our Safer Seas and Rivers Service
• Increasing organisational capacity to enable us to support communities across the UK to secure Bathing Water Status for river locations and inland areas
• Increasing our programme of citizen science water quality testing
• Continuing to publish our annual Water Quality Report.