€55m to help businesses plan for sustainable future and up to €1m available to manufacturing businesses.
The Irish Government has revealed a new €55m ‘Green Transition’ fund to help businesses move away from fossil fuels and towards more sustainable, cheaper alternatives.
The Green Transition Fund is part of Ireland’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), which is funded by the European Union.
“We need to take better care of our planet. This generation should aim to pass it on to the next in a better condition than we inherited it. Businesses have a really important role to play”
The Green Transition Fund comprises:
- The Climate Planning Fund for Business, which will give businesses funding to come up with a personalised plan to identify how best to remove reliance on fossil fuels in their business. A €1,800 grant to develop a plan and up to €50,000 matched funding to go towards specific capacity building within an enterprise are among the grants available.
- The Enterprise Emissions Reduction Investment Fund, which will give manufacturing businesses funding to invest in carbon neutral heating processes, smart metering and energy monitoring, and research and development. Up to €1m is available for businesses to upgrade their processes.
The programmes will run over the next five years. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) was developed by the Government to direct funding under the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility. Ireland is expected to receive more than €900m in grants over the lifetime of the Facility.
Interested companies can apply: https://www.enterprise-ireland.com/greentransitionfund
The responsibility of this generation
“We need to take better care of our planet. This generation should aim to pass it on to the next in a better condition than we inherited it. Businesses have a really important role to play,” said Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar, TD.
“However, we need to recognise that, despite the fact we have a higher number of people employed now than in the history of the state, many of our business owners are still getting back on their feet after what has been an incredibly difficult couple of years. So, we need to help them when it comes to what is another enormous challenge – reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.
“This new €55m Fund has two elements, one part to help businesses make a plan particular to their company to give them clarity on what exactly needs to be done and another part, more aimed at our manufacturing industry, investing in more environmental way of doing things.
“Putin’s war on Ukraine has highlighted the vulnerability of becoming too reliant on finite resources controlled by other states. We need to help Irish businesses now prepare for a future where economic growth and fossil fuels are not intertwined. This Fund is an important help.”
