UK Shared Prosperity Fund Low Carbon Project

This project provides dedicated support and a source of funding for eligible businesses to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Unfortunately, the scheme is now closed to new enquiries.

Please feel free to register your interest and we will place your enquiry on a waiting list and get in touch should further funding become available.

Businesses will be accepted onto the project on a first come, first served basis until capacity is reached.

Through the Low Carbon Project, you could:

• reduce your energy costs
• make your business more competitive, resilient and productive
• potentially safeguard and create jobs through improved profitability and reinvestment of savings
• become a more environmentally friendly business by reducing carbon emissions

This project is part-funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF).

Sheffield City Council is the accountable body for the South Yorkshire region.

About the UK Shared Prosperity Fund

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) is a three-year UK Government funding stream that replaces European Structural and Investment Funds.

The South Yorkshire UKSPF allocation totals £46.2m. South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) will administer UKSPF for South Yorkshire’s four local authority areas.

The Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK, investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills. For more information, visit GOV.UK: UK Shared Prosperity Fund: prospectus

What eligible businesses will receive

One-to-one support from a specialist advisor

Our sustainability expert will guide you through every stage of the process. They will:

• help you understand your energy usage and identify where you could save energy
• refer you for an energy audit or prepare a bespoke energy recommendations report
• support you to develop and deliver a plan for your energy saving improvements
• support you to understand your options for funding improvements, including whether you could be eligible to apply for a Low Carbon Grant
• signpost you to other sources of support available to help you reduce your carbon footprint

Carbon survey

You will get a free carbon survey of your business, to establish how much energy you use now and how you could save energy.

The report will identify energy saving improvements the business could invest in and provide a detailed breakdown of the carbon saving, cost, and return on investment for each, so you can decide what’s the right path to take.

Low Carbon Grants

The project includes a grant scheme through which businesses can apply for a financial contribution towards eligible costs of one or more energy-saving interventions.

Eligibility

To be eligible to take part in the scheme, your business must:

• be a Small or Medium Sized Enterprise (SME), meaning 250 employees or fewer with a turnover of less than £36 million
• have commercial premises in Sheffield (the scheme cannot support home-based businesses)
• not have received more than £315,000 Minimal Financial Assistance subsidy over the last 3 years (contact us to discuss this if you’re not sure)
• be able to provide 12 months’ energy bills to establish baseline energy use (or however many months you’ve been in your premises, if less than 12 months)

About the grants

As part of the Low Carbon scheme, businesses will have the opportunity to apply for funding towards eligible interventions identified in their carbon survey.

The grant will part-fund interventions, with the business making up the rest of the funding itself.

For projects costing up to £24,999, you can apply for a 50% grant contribution of £12,500.

For projects costing more than £25,000, you can apply for a grant contribution of between 10% and 50% of the project cost.

The minimum grant you can apply for is £1,500 (for a project with a total cost £3,000).

Eligibility for grants

To qualify for a grant through the project:

• the measure must be identified in a carbon survey (recipients of Energy Audit reports delivered through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) funded Low Carbon Business Support project are eligible to apply if you did not receive a grant through that project)
• the investment you are applying for funding towards must be a capital project with a return on investment of more than one year – we can’t fund working capital or operational costs
• the interventions must deliver a net carbon reduction
• your business must not have previously received an ERDF Low Carbon Grant
• the investment must be set to complete by December 2024
• tenants must have the permission of their landlord to make changes to the building fabric
• we cannot fund electric vehicles

Find out if you could be eligible

To find out more including whether you qualify for support, please contact Business Sheffield on 0114 224 5000 or at lowcarbonproject@sheffield.gov.uk.

The criteria above are for Sheffield only. Eligibility criteria may differ slightly between local authorities.

Case studies

See how businesses across South Yorkshire benefited from a very similar project run in 2022.

Businesses of all types have been able to improve their carbon footprint and reduce their energy use through the programme.