Industries to receive support for promoting resource-efficient technologies

TALLINN – Starting Wednesday, Aug. 10, Estonian industrial companies can start entering applications in the e-support environment to receive support from the Environmental Investment Center (KIK) for the promotion of resource-efficient green technologies, the budget of the application round is approximately 13.8 million euros.

Applications can be submitted from the morning of Sept. 7, KIK said. The grant application is carried out on a running basis as an open application until the budget of the application round is exhausted.

"Over the past five years, KIK has supported the resource efficiency investment projects of 182 companies with 67 million euros from European Union funds. We have also supported resource audits of companies with 700,000 euros," Lauri Alver, head of KIK's department of grants and services, said in a press release.

In addition to the support that will be opened on Wednesday, there are plans to further support companies from EU funds in the coming years. "All these investments in promoting resource productivity of companies contribute to a climate-neutral economy, environmental and economic resilience and adaptation to climate change. One of the success stories of the measure was, for example, Aknakoda OU's project, where resource savings were achieved by purchasing new and efficient equipment -- now, the company saves raw material through more precise cutting of window frames, and there is also less waste and fewer defective products," Alver said.

The new measure provides support for the development and implementation of a resource-efficient solution, as well as the acquisition of equipment and the introduction of an information and communication technology solution.

Support can be applied for by a business whose main or secondary activity corresponds in the extent of at least 20 percent of sales revenue to the mining industry or processing industry codes, with the exception of activities supporting the production of oil and natural gas and the production of tobacco products.

The prerequisite for applying for resource efficiency investments is a resource utilization analysis carried out by auditors trained for this purpose. A resource utilization analysis assesses the current situation and how to make production more resource-efficient. The need for investment will become clear on the basis of the results of the analysis.

The size of the grant is 250,000 to two million euros, and the grant rate is up to 50 percent per project. The support is provided by the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and the measure was developed by the Ministry of the Environment.