Factories producing some of the country’s best-known beers, cereals, soft drinks and cars will receive government support to reduce their energy costs and cut carbon emissions.

Heineken, Kellogg’s, Toyota and Britvic are among businesses across the UK to be awarded a share of £24.3 million government funding to help clean up their manufacturing processes and improve their energy efficiency.

The Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF) supports businesses using high amounts of energy to reduce their fossil fuel using innovative low-carbon technologies. This will help companies save on their energy costs, which in turn will safeguard British jobs and help grow the economy – one of the government’s five priorities.

• Heineken is receiving £3.7 million to upgrade their Manchester Brewery, including installing technology to recover waste heat from the refrigeration systems used to cool their beer
• Toyota in Derby is receiving over £282,000 to introduce new airless paint sprayers, which use static electricity instead of air, to reduce the amount of energy they need.
• Britvic Soft Drinks will use £4.4 million to implement new technologies, including a heat recovery system and Low Temperature Hot Water network, at its site in east London, where it produces drinks such as Tango and Robinsons
• Kellogg’s in Wrexham will receive funding for a study assessing the possibility of recovering the waste heat from their cereal manufacturing processes to reduce their gas usage.
• Tate and Lyle Sugars, which supplies nearly half of all the sugar and syrup on UK supermarket shelves, is receiving over £71,800 to explore how to reduce natural gas use at their Thames Refinery.

Other recipients include Ingevity UK in Warrington, which will receive £2.6 million for hydrogen ready natural gas fuelled boilers at their chemicals plant, Natural World Products in Dunmurry, a producer of peat-free composts and soil conditioners, is receiving nearly £300,000 to replace diesel-powered plant equipment with electric kit, and Breedon Cement is receiving over £231,000 for a feasibility study on using carbon capture technologies at their site in Hope, Derbyshire.

Energy-intensive industries are responsible for 11% of the UK’s total emissions and represent over 70% of UK industrial emissions. While the UK is making excellent progress on the road to net zero, having cut emissions by over 44% since 1990 – decarbonising faster than any other G7 country – it is estimated that industry will need to cut their emissions by two thirds by 2035 for the UK to achieve its net zero target.

Minister for Energy Efficiency Lord Callanan said:

“We are leading the world in reaching net zero, having cut emissions by over 44% since 1990 – but to keep up this progress and achieve our green goals, we’ve got to transform our industrial sectors, as some of the industries most critical to our economy are also those with the highest emissions.

We’re backing them with government funding to use the latest technologies to cut their emissions and their reliance on fossil fuels – helping to future-proof these industries as we grow our green economy.

This will not only cut their energy costs but also boost their competitiveness on the world stage, helping them thrive and protecting the thousands of jobs they offer across the country.”

Matt Callan, Senior Director Supply Chain at Heineken UK, said:

“We are proud to have ambitious targets when it comes to reducing our carbon footprint, within both our own operations and across our entire value chain. For over 150 years, we have been passionate about making a positive impact and more than ever it is clear that there is no time to waste in taking action to reduce carbon emissions.

This investment and IETF funding will enable us to act faster, and with the commitment and passion of our colleagues and partners, will help us raise the bar at our Manchester Brewery to brew our beers in a more sustainable way.

The project will make a significant contribution on our journey to carbon neutrality and provide us with the learnings to reapply across our other sites as we continue our journey to brew a better world.”

Phil Makin, Technical Development Manager at Kellogg UK said:

“The Industrial Energy Transformation Fund is enabling our Wrexham site to unlock future sustainability savings and benefits, whilst driving down our overall carbon footprint and helping towards Kellogg’s 2030 carbon neutral target.”

Sarah Webster, Britvic’s Sustainable Business Director, said:

“We are passionate about delivering on our ambition to be Net Zero by 2050, and we are pleased to have reduced our direct emissions by over 30% since 2017.

We want to go further faster, but we can’t do it alone. Alongside our sustainable investment programme, this IETF grant will help us reduce our carbon emissions at our much-loved London site by a further 50%.

This will benefit our employees, the local community, our customers and consumers who can feel reassured that we take our environmental responsibilities seriously.”

A total of £289 million is being made available to businesses through the IETF up to 2027 and today’s allocations take amount awarded under the scheme so far to £61.4 million.

The announcement builds on the wide-ranging support that has been made available to energy-intensive industries. This includes:

• Businesses have been supported throughout the winter with £5.6 billion of support, enabling some to only pay around half of the predicted wholesale energy costs.
• The Energy Bill Relief Scheme has provided a discount on non-domestic (business, public sector and voluntary sector organisations) gas and electricity unit prices. This six-month scheme expired in March 2023.
• The Energy Bill Discount Scheme started on 1 April 2023. The new scheme will mean eligible UK businesses and other non-domestic energy users may receive a discount on high energy bills until 31 March 2024.
• The Energy and Trade Intensive Industries (ETII) discount will provide a higher level of support to businesses and organisations in eligible sectors.
• The government has provided over £800 million since 2013 to help industrial sectors with energy costs, with many businesses able to bid for competitive funds of over £1.5 billion to support them going green.

The Industrial Energy Transformation Fund is one of many schemes that form part of the government’s commitment to reduce overall UK energy demand by 15% by 2030, alongside the wider ambition for the UK to move towards greater energy independence.