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Applications for the 2025/26 Resource Wise Community Fund are opening soon.

The 2025/26 Resource Wise Community Fund support initiatives aimed at reducing waste to landfill, promoting sustainability, and align with actions set out in the Waste Management and Minimisation Plan 2022-2028 (WMMP). 

Grants range from $2,000 to $25,000 from a pool of $100,000. 

Individuals and groups can submit applications by the deadline of Friday 13th June. 

For more information, contact resource.wise@tauranga.govt.nz

About the Resource Wise Community Fund

The Resource Wise Community Fund is in its 8^th year and adjusts its priorities annually to align with council goals.

Successful applicants from previous years

Priority outcomes for the 2025/26 funding round include:

• Promote a shift up the Waste Hierarchy* to focus on avoidance and reduction.
• Achievement of specific actions within the WMMP. This year’s priority WMMP actions are:
  • Action 15 - Investigate, consider, trial, and implement innovative smart technology solutions for waste management.
  • Action 19 - Investigate, consider, trial, and implement solutions for the diversion of construction and demolition waste in collaboration with private industry.
  • Action 20 - Investigate, consider, trial, and implement services for targeted waste streams, particularly hard-to-recycle items such as soft plastics, small lids, textiles, and batteries.
  • Action 25 - Promote food waste prevention, food and garden waste rescue initiatives, and home and community composting.
  • Action 29 - Investigate, consider, trial, and implement changes to support a circular economy.
• Identify opportunities that support a transition to a circular economy and provide solutions where appropriate.
• Encourage and support iwi and cultural groups to reduce waste to landfill

The Waste Hierarchy

Source: Ministry for the Environment

Grants range from $2,0000 to $25,000 from a pool of $100,000.

Example of a successful community grant application

EnviroHub – Precious Plastic: Caring for Papatuanuku
What the grant supported

Envirohub wanted to engage with an additional 12 organisations in Tauranga and extend their collection network to grow and reinforce the behaviour change opportunities and promote/demonstrate recycling of valuable resources. Envirohub planned to undertake two annual visits to 12 preschools/kohanga reo, schools/kura and community groups to talk about the importance and value of consumer choices and behaviours that align with the higher levels of the waste hierarchy, keeping plastic lids out of landfill, the things that can make plastic difficult to recycle, processes used to transform our community's plastic lids into cool stuff.

View example application (177kb pdf)

Funding timelines

Apply now

Example of a Resource Wise Community Fund recipient 2024

Good Neighbour Food Rescue keeps on trucking

Rescuing and repurposing edible food before it ends up in landfill

Tauranga’s Good Neighbour organisation received a vital boost to its operations with funding support towards a new food rescue truck as part of Tauranga City Council’s Resource Wise Community Fund.

Five days a week, the Good Neighbour food rescue team collects food from local supermarkets, distributors, food manufacturers, local markets and cafes that is good enough to eat but not good enough to sell. Teams of volunteers then sort, repackage and tailor the food to the specific needs of more than 70 community organisations in the Bay of Plenty who then distribute it to the people that need it most.

The initiative rescues about 2,500kg of food daily, which would otherwise go to landfill, and works to relieve food insecurity for 6500 people on a weekly basis.

Good Neighbour was very grateful to receive a contribution towards the replacement of one of their Food Rescue chiller trucks through the Resource Wise Community Fund.

“Our aging truck was slowing down our important food rescue operation,” says Renee Hanna, Good Neighbour General Manager.

“Being able to purchase a reliable truck was critical for allowing us to continue gathering surplus food from our community, distributing it to where it is most needed.”

Tauranga City Council’s Sustainability and Waste Manager, Dan Smith, says food waste is a huge problem when it ends up in our landfill.

“When food waste becomes buried underneath other rubbish it decomposes without oxygen and releases methane, a harmful greenhouse gas,” Dan says.

“What Good Neighbour is doing is not only diverting food waste from our landfills and helping to reduce environmental harm, but they are also reducing food insecurity for many people and families in our community.”

Applications are now open for the 2025/26 Resource Wise Community Fund, which offers between $2,000-$25,000 to an organisation or business who wants to deliver effective waste minimisation projects that align with Tauranga City Council’s Waste Management and Minimisation Plan 2022-2028.

The fund is intended to remove monetary barriers for organisations and businesses keen to reduce waste and promote waste reduction in Tauranga.

The Resource Wise Community Fund ($100,000 annually for distribution) is sourced from the Waste Levy, provided to councils by the Ministry for the Environment for waste minimisation education, and does not impose additional costs on general rates.