£350 million unveiled to cut emissions and help fuel UK’s ‘green recovery’
The UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a £350 million investment package to cut emissions in heavy industry and drive economic recovery from COVID-19. It aims to help the UK meet its legally binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.
The UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a £350 million investment package to cut emissions in heavy industry and drive economic recovery from COVID-19.
It aims to help the UK meet its legally binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. The Prime Minister hopes this will help businesses to decarbonise across the heavy industry, construction, space and transport sectors and to secure the UK’s place at the forefront of green innovation.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, ‘The UK now has a huge opportunity to cement its place at the vanguard of green innovation, setting an example worldwide while growing the economy and creating new jobs.’
The multi-million pound funding package includes:
- £139 million to cut emissions in heavy industry by supporting the transition from natural gas to clean hydrogen power, and scaling up carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology
- £149 million to drive the use of innovative materials in heavy industry; the 13 initial projects will include proposals to use ashes as raw materials for new glass and ceramic products and use slag arisings within the steel industry to produce an aggregate replacement that can be used for road construction
- £26 million to support advanced new building techniques in order to reduce build costs and carbon emissions in the construction industry
- A £10 million boost for construction tech which will go towards 19 projects focused on improving productivity and building quality, for example, re-usable roofs and walls and “digital clones” of buildings that analyse data in real time
- Opening up bids for a further £10million for R&D in the automotive sector, to help companies take cutting edge ideas from prototype to market, including more efficient electric motors or more powerful batteries
IOM3 has welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday (22 July) of £350 million to support heavy industry to cut emissions and drive economic recovery from COVID-19.
Heavy industry has a key role to play in the transition to a low carbon, resource efficient society and in supporting the UK Government’s levelling up agenda.
With the right investment and support, these industries can deliver transformational change and emissions reductions while retaining and growing their competitiveness, essential to a sustainable economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis.
Deploying carbon capture usage and storage at scale will enable industry to reduce and realise value from its carbon emissions, create new green jobs and support the levelling up of economic opportunity across the UK.
The announcement of this funding is a welcome signal that investment in low carbon research and innovation remains high on the political agenda. Long term strategic policies and funding models will be needed to achieve confidence for private investment and to drive change at the required scale and pace, whilst strengthening UK competitiveness, to enable crucial progress in the low carbon transition and economic recovery.
Professionals in materials, minerals and mining have important roles to play in delivering a green and resilient economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and IOM3 supports its members to be heroes of the transition to a low-carbon, resource efficient society.
For more information on the UKRI funding announcement as part of its £149m Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge, click here.
