Eligibility criteria

The following business areas are not eligible for DE-Carbonise grants but may still be eligible for a free audit:

Your business may be too small if:

The guide below should help you to check if your businesses is eligible. Please contact us if you are not sure about eligibility.

Eligibility guide

DE-Carbonise grants are from an EU fund primarily aimed at small and medium sized industrial and commercial companies. All grants are externally audited, and it is the auditor’s decision as to whether a business is eligible. For this reason we have to be cautious, because any grants that the auditor judges to be ineligible will need to be repaid to the funder.

 The following questions will help you work out whether your business is eligible:

1. Is the business a Small or Medium Sized Enterprise (SME)? This is defined as a company with less than 250 employees and either a turnover of less than € 50m or a balance sheet total of less than € 43m. The business must be no more than 25% owned by a company that isn’t an SME.

2. Is your business in the “social care” sector? (provision of local social welfare facilities e.g. hospitals, nursing homes, fire stations, child-minding facilities, public sports facilities, parks, public libraries)

3. Does your business operate from business premises, paying business rates and a business electricity / gas tariff?

4. Does at least 50% of the business income come from trading?

5. Does your business use enough energy to allow the DE-Carbonise project to help you save enough energy to meet our grant threshold?

Projects need to save a minimum of 2,000kWh of electricity or 3,000kWh of gas. This means that if your annual energy use is less than around 20,000kWh electricity and / or 30,000kWh gas we may not be able to help you with a grant. However, we will also look at the materials and vehicles you use to make this decision.

The minimum project size is £2,500 not including VAT (subject to the energy savings), which must all be paid for in advance. Some smaller businesses may not be able to afford this investment, or find that the work they require may not cost this amount.

If you are in doubt please contact us so we can make an assessment. Please be aware that it may take us a few weeks to process this information as we have to prioritise companies and projects that are clearly eligible.