Current students
- Students
  
  View all the services available for students of the Institute
  
  Read More
Becoming a student
- Becoming a
  student
  
  Study with us
  
  Read More
Members
- Members
  
  View member services
  
  Read More
Employers
- Employers
  
  Services to support your business
  
  Read More

☰

Find a firm
Jobs

☰

Home
Knowledge centre
Professional development
About us
Shop
News

View Cart

0 Item

Sustainability Centre

☰

Sustainability home
About
Resources
News

Home/
Sustainability centre/
Resources/
Financing Sustainability – Northern Ireland

Financing Sustainability – Northern Ireland

There are commercial benefits of integrating ESG considerations into business strategies: cost savings and reductions, attraction and retention of talented employees, mitigating risk and securing investment.

This page lists some of the financial supports, incentives and funding available to organisations in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors for sustainability-related projects in Northern Ireland.

NISEP

InvestNI

InvestNI, the regional business development agency for Northern Ireland, offers support across a wide variety of areas to help compete successfully and function efficiently. Expert advice on developing business specific waste management strategies includes the below.

Sustainability Reports

All Northern Ireland businesses with an annual energy and resource spend of more than £30k can avail of this support which helps you to measure, monitor and report on your environmental impacts, demonstrating transparency and accountability.

Technical Consultancy

Available to all businesses with an annual energy and resource spend in excess of £30k, this support will allow you to make informed decisions on potential investments in energy efficiency – and ultimately save on business energy and reduce business costs.

Resource Matching

This service offers opportunities to convert redundant materials of one business into a resource for another – both adding value and reducing business costs for all parties. It allows businesses to prolong the life of resources while reducing their carbon footprint.

Resource Efficiency Capital Grant

Open to InvestNI customers only, this is investment support of up to £50k to help you invest in energy saving equipment that will drive productivity in your business. This applies to any project that will reduce the consumption of water, raw materials, or waste production. The rate of support is based on company size – a maximum of 10% of total eligible project costs for large businesses, 20% for medium and 30% for small and micro. Competitive grant calls are operated at least once a year.

Additional InvestNI resources

Supply Chain Resilience and Development Framework

InvestNI has a Supply Chain Resilience and Development Framework (SCRDF) available to certain eligible manufactures of products or providers of internationally traded services to help companies improve their supply chain resilience and competitiveness. Businesses can register their interest in the programme by emailing supplychainquery@investni.com.

Adapt your business to climate change

A guide from nibusinessinfo.co.uk, Adapt your business to climate change, explains why businesses need to adapt to climate change, what the risks can be, how to change business priorities in response to climate change, and what other businesses are doing to reduce their carbon footprint in Northern Ireland. The site nibusinessinfo.co.uk is a free service offered by InvestNI and is the official online channel for business advice and guidance in Northern Ireland.

Community Finance Ireland

Community Finance Ireland is the fastest-growing dedicated social finance provider across Ireland and the UK. A charity and a social enterprise operating across the entire island of Ireland, it aims to “create a world-class community finance system that works tirelessly towards ensuring that positive social impact is felt – not just dreamt”. Since it began trading, it has loaned over £58m (€72m) across the island of Ireland. Supporting loans ranging from £/€ 10k to £/€ 500k. All clients are ‘matched’ with a local client executive, so clients always have a personal contact nearby – right throughout all stages of the loan requirements from the first yes to the final payment. All profits are reinvested for the benefit of the sector. For more, visit its website.

Green loans

Banks are offering loans to help business. Ulster Bank is offering ‘green loans’ to help eligible UK businesses finance business assets to support eligible sustainability projects. These can include solar panels, electric vehicles, or heat pumps on commercial buildings. There are no arrangement fees for eligible UK businesses, and a range of borrowing options are available from £50,001, with fixed and variable interest rate loans.

NISEP

The Northern Ireland Sustainable Energy Programme (NISEP) makes funding available for energy efficiency schemes. Eligible schemes are listed each year. The current scheme ran from April 2021 to March 2022. Funding under NISEP is made available through PowerNI for businesses, who can avail of c. of c.20% if looking to install energy efficiency products, such as LED lighting and intelligent heating controls.

Green Innovation Challenge Fund

The Green Innovation Challenge Fund is a research and development funding to support the decarbonisation of the energy system, through development of the disruptive technologies and innovative projects to help meet the goals of the Economic Recovery Action Plan, Energy Strategy and 10x Economic Strategy.

Mind Body Business

Mind Body Business is a series of initiatives that encourage employers to put health at the centre of their business agenda. Aims to helps to raise awareness of the benefits of workplace health, engage and motivate your workplace to maximise performance, reduce absence rates and retain the best employees, and support you on your journey to make your business a better place to work.

Age at Work

Age at Work is a programme that provides access to toolkits, networks, and support to unlock benefits for businesses and employees. Age at Work aims to support businesses to be more age-inclusive in their approach to retaining, retraining, and recruiting older workers, raise awareness of the need for an age-inclusive agenda in government, business and wider society and support mature workers to remain in or return to work.