Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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My Department and its agencies are actively pursuing opportunities for decarbonisation across the enterprise base. We aim to foster strong, resilient businesses, that are successful and sustainable, while meeting our sector’s climate targets.

The Green Transition Fund, which I launched in June 2022, is designed very specifically to reduce manufacturing combustion emissions, a core measure in Climate Action Plan 2021. The measure is to “accelerate the uptake of carbon-neutral heating in industry”; it is therefore targeted at manufacturing businesses. This fund provides manufacturing businesses the foundation they need to begin their transition to low carbon production processes and help them to decarbonise their operations through investment in carbon abating capital equipment and technologies.

For the reporting period from the launch of the Green Transition Fund in June to end of September, 38 companies supported through the Green Transition Fund. The level of demand is anticipated to be larger for the final three months of the year out to December 2022.

The 38 companies supported through the Fund do not include figures for October, which will not be reported officially until 31^stOctober, however there have been an additional 13 approvals this month as per the latest available figures. This brings the total number of companies supported through the Fund to 51.

The table below highlights the sectoral spread of the 38 companies supported up to the end of September.

The Green Transition Fund comprises two separate funding streams, one to build capability and one to incentivise investment in key technologies:

1. The Climate Planning Fund for Business, which will give businesses funding to develop a 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.

2. 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 €1 million is available for businesses to upgrade their processes through this stream.