Securing clean water for the future

The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay and ScottsMiracle-Gro have developed a long-term agreement to work together on two specific projects: a consumer education effort on the proper use of lawn and garden products through the organization’s “Businesses for the Bay” program and an effort to help residential homeowners throughout the Bay region create gardens that will act as natural rainwater catchments and filters to improve protection for the Bay under the Alliance’s “RiverWise Communities” program.

Program location: mid-Atlantic states

Fueled by runoff pollution, Lake Erie is experiencing the worst algal blooms in a generation, threatening public health and the future of communities around the lake.

ScottsMiracle-Gro is supporting the Alliance for the Great Lakes’ work with scientists, local community leaders, volunteers, elected and agency officials to ensure the right regulations and protections are in place to reduce pollution and restore Lake Erie for all.

Program location: Great Lakes

The Alliance for Water Efficiency (AWE) is a national thought leader driving the smart use of limited water resources. Local water management agencies, businesses, government agencies and nonprofit organizations all look to AWE to be a leading voice for water efficiency and a knowledgeable source to help build successful water conservation programs.

ScottsMiracle-Gro is working with AWE to better understand the water saving opportunities in outdoor landscape settings, through AWE’s OutdoorWater Savings Research Initiative.

Program location: National

The Council for Watershed Health (CWH) has been a leader in the Greater Los Angeles Area on applied research and analysis that informs policy change and leads to a more sustainable Southern California region. Through collaboration and partnerships, their programs address diverse issues such as urban stormwater management, community capacity building, the LA River Watershed Monitoring Program and the promotion of sustainable landscapes on Green Streets and in schools.

CWH is lending its expertise to ScottsMiracle-Gro to help shape a public education campaign to reduce residential outdoor water use, and with support from Scotts, will conduct new research to create a residential education program on how to properly maintain beneficial landscaping during a drought.

Program location: California

Since 2017, we have partnered with The Everglades Foundation in support of innovative solutions to help protect South Florida’s waterways for future generations.

Program location: National

Similar to the educational effort with Tampa Bay Watch, ScottsMiracle-Gro and the Galveston Bay Foundation are teaming up to engage school-aged Texans to establish marsh grass nurseries at their schools for replanting at coastal restoration sites. Once replanted, the marsh grass roots hold soils in place, preventing erosion that would otherwise negatively impact the Bay’s water quality.

As in Tampa, this program gives children a hands-on opportunity to learn the environmental benefits of growing and maintaining plants while developing their technical skill to properly care for those plants into maturity.

Program location: Texas

The National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) is the nonprofit organization that represents America’s 3,000 conservation districts, their state/territory associations, and the 17,000 men and women who serve on their governing boards. In 2012, NACD teamed up with ScottsMiracle-Gro to launch a national landowner education program that local conservation districts could use to promote water quality efforts.

The program, “Backyard Conservation: Lawns and the Environment” is a multi-media package conservation district staff can use with its many landowner constituents to help drive behavioral change that will prevent nutrients from reaching local waterways. Since then, ScottsMiracle-Gro has been the primary sponsor of an ongoing education series that NACD offers to local urban water protection leaders about best resource management practices.

Program location: National

To address the critical need to increase pollinator habitat for beneficial insects, such as honey bees, monarch butterflies and others, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation and the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) teamed up on a new “Parks for Pollinators” campaign in 2018. This national campaign is aimed at raising public awareness of pollinator health and encouraging local action through public parks and pollinator gardens.

Program location: National

The Nature Conservancy has coupled innovative programming to reduce the amount of nutrients reaching the Great Lakes with traditional land restoration work for a holistic approach to prevent and mitigate nutrient runoff.

ScottsMiracle-Gro will support this multi-faceted work in three ways:

1. Helping to establish an Ohio Water Trust to leverage public-private partnerships to accomplish the most critical water quality improvement projects in Ohio
2. Restoring coastal wetlands along Lake Erie to filter phosphorus and other pollutants before it reaches the Lake
3. Expanding a successful agricultural nutrient management program into the Ohio River Basin to reduce the amount of nutrient runoff causing algal blooms in the Ohio River and, ultimately, Gulf of Mexico hypoxia

Program location: Ohio

ScottsMiracle-Gro has supported New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund's water quality work since 2013. NYLCVEF has focused on educating New Yorkers about actions that can reduce nitrogen from reaching waterways such as Long Island Sound. NYLCVEF’s work has also enabled thousands of New Yorkers to voice their support for water quality protection efforts to the state's elected leadership.

Program location: New York

In 2017 the Foundation began funding the North Shore Land Alliance’s Long Island Water Education Program. In a three-session series tied to their STEM education, fourth, fifth and sixth graders in 19 schools learn about protecting and conserving water resources.

Program location: New York

Lake Erie is the most fragile of the Great Lakes, and has been plagued in recent years by phosphorus-driven algae blooms that have hurt the environment and even restricted access to clean drinking water for hundreds of thousands of residents.

ScottsMiracle-Gro is supporting the Ohio Environmental Council’s work to implement a bipartisan, binational goal to reduce phosphorus runoff into Lake Erie by 40%, in order to bring the Lake’s waters into a healthy balance again.

Program location: Ohio

Since 2014, ScottsMiracle-Gro has supported independent research conducted by the Ocean Research & Conservation Association (ORCA) focusing on the Indian River Lagoon. In addition, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation supports ORCA’s Living Lagoon School Program that engages area middle-school students in hands-on science and lagoon restoration.

Program location: Florida

Since 2017 The ScottsMiracle-Gro Foundation has supported the Pollinator Stewardship Council in its efforts to educate the public about the importance of pollinators and to improve the environmental conditions necessary for them to thrive.

Program location: National

ScottsMiracle-Gro first teamed up with Restore America’s Estuaries (RAE) in 2014, as part of a diverse coalition of partners to launch a coastal management and restoration study in Tampa Bay. Currently the two organizations work together to support coastal restoration work in fragile watersheds, including the Chesapeake, Tampa and Galveston bays.

Program location: National

As California's official statewide conservation education program, ScottsMiracle-Gro has worked with Save Our Water since the company’s CEO pledged support for Governor Jerry Brown’s water conservation goals in 2015. Since then, Scotts has conducted over 60 workshop clinics at retail locations throughout California to bolster Save Our Water’s mission and help homeowners conceive and implement projects to help achieve the water conservation goal. Scotts will continue to support Save Our Water’s public education campaigns in order to help bring lasting water savings to California’s outdoor landscape.

Program location: California

ScottsMiracle-Gro and its associates are partnering on an environmental restoration program that Tampa Bay Watch has established with Tampa-area middle and high schools, called Bay Grasses in Classes. Through the program, students tend native plant nurseries on school grounds and transfer the plants they grow to designated restoration sites within the Tampa Bay estuary.

The restoration plantings help clean the Bay by filtering nutrients, while the students learn real-world environmental and agronomic education principles that will help them become the next generation of stewards for Florida’s waterways and expert backyard gardeners.

Program location: Florida

Founded by three courageous women in 1961, Save The Bay’s mission is to protect and restore San Francisco Bay for people and wildlife, uniting the Bay Area to create a clean and healthy Bay. ScottsMiracle-Gro is supporting the cornerstone of this work: ongoing active restoration of 80 acres of crucial habitat at six sites around the Bay. Save The Bay accelerates wetland restoration for resilience to climate change, incorporating community engagement and public education.

Program location: California

The New Jersey League of Conservation Voters Education Fund is a non-partisan, tax-deductible non-profit that protects our precious natural resources by raising awareness of key environmental challenges and increasing the efficacy of the entire environmental community. We accomplish our goals by providing environmental organizations with technical assistance, research, and coalition leadership for greater unity and focus; educating, engaging, and mobilizing people with objective and accurate information about critical environmental issues in the state; and advocating sound policy-making that safeguards the health of New Jersey residents and protects water, air, and open space throughout our state.

Program location: New Jersey

The Nature Conservancy’s New York Chapter has been leading a campaign to both raise public awareness and catalyze public funding to address the nitrogen pollution crisis. We work with state agencies, town leaders, and communities to secure the clean water that our lives and livelihoods depend on. From our earliest stages of shaping water quality programs, we have promoted the importance of equitable access.

Program location: New York