Unlocking Space for Business Grant Call: Environmental Intelligence and Emissions

All successful UK Space Agency grant proposals must follow certain mandatory requirements:The project must be led by a UK organisation who will receive a grant from the UK Space Agency.

This can be any type of UK organisation including University-led academic research proposals and Industry-led commercial research proposalsGrant recipients must demonstrate the ability to effectively manage a project.

Grant recipients must have a UK bank account and all grant payments will be made in UK sterling (as per grant funding agreement).As per the terms of the Grant Funding Agreement, the lead organisation will be required to put in place a Collaboration or Flow Down Agreement that ensures all terms and conditions within the Grant Funding Agreement are passed onto project partners.

This should be in place with 30 days of signature. This should include provisions regarding how the results of the work, including any IPR and spinouts, will be exploited by project partners.All project members must have in place and provide evidence when requested of appropriate anti-bribery and anti-corruption policies.All project members must be able to provide evidence that they are GDPR compliant.

All project members must provide evidence of a process for declaring and managing conflicts of interest.Projects cannot work in areas that are in active conflict and any travel to overseas areas must comply with Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) travel advice.

Projects must pass due diligence checks on company viability and national security (including financial standing assessment, governance assessment, conflicts of interest assessment, national security assessment and technical expertise assessment) – the UK Space Agency reserves the right to withdraw any offer in the event an applicant does not pass any of these requirements.Projects must comply with any call-specific rules stated in the call guidance page.Projects can include non-domestic partners (including those within the EU) who bring their own funding. 

Applicants should note that all applicants, irrespective of geographic location, must still satisfy the core eligibility requirements set out in this section above and award will be subject to completion of satisfactory due diligence checks.

The Unlocking Space for Business programme aims to: 

• Stimulate Demand for UK Space Applications: identify high-value use cases across sectors and support end-user organisations to adopt space-enabled solutions;  

• Deliver Tangible Benefits : Deliver real-world projects that show how space data and services can improve outcomes for end user businesses; 

• Reduce Barriers to Adoption: provide support to help end-user organisations integrate space solutions into their operations, including technical, commercial and operational guidance; and 

• Build Cross-Sector Partnerships: bring together space companies, end users, and integrators to co-develop solutions and scale adoption. 

This USB Environmental Intelligence and Emissions Grant Call is challenge-led, focusing on funding specific environmental intelligence and emissions opportunities where space-enabled technologies can address recognised end-user business needs. Applicants are expected to evidence: 

• Strategic alignment: how their proposed project responds to one of the two challenge areas outlined within this guidance; 

• Economic benefits to end-user business: how their project aims to deliver clear economic benefits for an identified end-user organisation in the UK; and  

• Supporting growth of space supplier: how their project supports the growth of a UK space supplier in the consortium through increased TRL and economic growth.  

• Pathway to future adoption: how the project could support longer-term adoption by the end user, including evidence of a credible route to further deployment, procurement or commercial implementation following completion of the funded project. 

Space-derived data and services provide businesses with the ability to monitor environmental conditions at scale, improve decision making, enhance customer experience and generate actionable insights that would be difficult, costly or impractical to obtain through terrestrial approaches alone. 

As demand for environmental intelligence continues to grow, space enabled technologies are increasingly recognised as important tools for addressing climate and environmental challenges. Earth Observation (EO) capabilities provide large-scale monitoring and environmental insights, while Satellite Communications (SatCom) support the reliable transmissions of data from remote and distributed assets and Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) technologies enable accurate tracking, measurement and location-based decision making. Research by the World Economic Forum estimates that EO applications have the potential to help reduce up to 2 billion tonnes of CO2 globally, equivalent to approximately 3.8% of annual greenhouse gas emissions, with further opportunities for UK businesses and the space sector enabled through advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

Environmental intelligence is becoming increasingly important across both the public and private sectors, driven by climate adaptation requirements, nature recovery commitments, environmental regulation, sustainability reporting obligations and growing demand for trusted environmental insights. 

Projects funded through this competition must address one of the following two challenge areas: 

Challenge Area 1: Environmental Intelligence for Climate, Nature and Natural Capital 

The challenge: How can space-enabled data provide trusted, scalable environmental intelligence to enable organisations to better understand, manage and respond to climate-related and nature-related risks, whilst supporting the monitoring and verification of environmental outcomes? 

The context: Businesses across the private sector increasingly need reliable environmental information to support climate adaptation, nature recovery, inform infrastructure resilience and make sustainable investment decisions. However, environmental information is often fragmented, difficult to access and challenging to integrate into operational decision-making.  

Space-derived data can provide consistent, repeatable and large scale monitoring of environmental conditions that would otherwise be costly or impractical to observe through terrestrial methods alone. When combined with geospatial analytics and other data sources, it can support businesses to assess environmental risks, monitor changes over time and evidence environmental outcomes. 

The solution: We are seeking to fund innovative, near to market commercial solutions that demonstrate how space-enabled technologies can improve environmental decision making, monitoring and verification for end-user UK businesses, and support the adoption of environmental intelligence across a range of sectors. Projects should be led by an end-user business around a clearly defined operational or commercial challenge end-user s piloting a space-derived solution which is integrated into their operational decision-making. 

Projects may support end-user businesses seeking to improve climate resilience, assess environmental dependencies and impacts, monitor biodiversity outcomes, or generate trusted environmental evidence for investment and decision making. Examples of relevant subsectors include investment, insurance, asset management, banking and wider financial services. 

Challenge Area 2: Environmental Emissions Monitoring and Verification 

The challenge: How can space-enabled technologies improve the detection, monitoring and verification of environmentally harmful emissions, to support environmental compliance, sustainability objectives and the transition to a lower-carbon economy? 

The context: Emissions from energy, waste, agriculture and industrial activities remain a significant environmental challenge. Businesses require improved capabilities to identify emissions sources, monitor environmental performance, verify the effectiveness of mitigation activities and meet regulatory requirements.  

Many emissions sources are geographically dispersed, difficult to access or span complex international supply chains. Space-enabled technologies can provide large scale and independent observations that complement conventional monitoring approaches, helping businesses improve transparency, accountability and decision making.  

The solution: We are seeking to fund innovative, near to market commercial solutions that demonstrate how space-enabled technologies can improve the identification, monitoring, reporting and verification of emissions and environmental impacts for non-space UK businesses. Projects should involve an end-user business piloting a space-derived solution which is integrated into their operational decision-making.  

Examples of relevant subsectors include energy, utilities, waste management, infrastructure, agriculture and industrial operations.

Awarded projects are expected to commence from January 2027 and have a maximum duration of 9 months, subject to the agreed project start date. This call will close at 4pm GMT on Friday 11 December 2027 – no extensions are permitted and late applications will not be accepted.

Applications for the Unlocking Space for Environmental Intelligence and Emissions Grant Call will be managed through the Flexigrant portal, which will support the submissions, assessment and administration of applications. Applicants must register for the portal before submitting an application. Applicants can access the portal and register an account here: Flexigrant.  

Applications must be submitted via Flexigrant no later than 16:00 GMT on Friday 11 December 2026. Late submissions will not be accepted.  

Your application must include:

• A completed application form;

• Annex A: Proposed Milestone Table

• Annex B: Project Cost Breakdown

• Annex C: National Security Questionnaire (where required)

• Any additional supporting documentation requested within the application process.

The UK Space Agency will host a webinar on Tuesday 3 November 2026 at 11:00GMT to provide further information about the competition and answer questions from prospective applicants. Unlocking Space for Business: Environmental Intelligence and Emissions Grant Call Briefing Webinar.

Applicants should review FAQs within this guidance before submitting enquiries.  

For questions relating to the competition that are not covered within this guidance or for technical support with the Flexigrant portal please contact UKSA.USB_Grant@DSIT.gov.uk 

Further information on key dates and competition milestones are provided in the Call and Delivery Timeline section below.

For any questions, please refer to the Announcement of Opportunity (AoO),, or contact UKSA.USB@dsit.gov.uk.