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.

Today, 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.

Today’s 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) discountwill 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.

Full list of recipients are as follows:

• Ardagh Glass Limited in Doncaster is receiving £1.7 million for their Doncaster Efficient Furnace Project, which will develop a brand-new container glass production furnace at the facility.
• Mitsubishi Chemicals UK in Hull is receiving over £3.1m to install state-of-the-art technology which will combust waste gas to generate energy.
• Naylor Industries in Barnsley, a specialist clay pipe manufacturer, is receiving over £73,100 to explore re-using waste heat from the exhaust gases of their kilns, to make their manufacturing process more energy efficient.
• Wienerberger Limited in Doncaster is receiving over £220,000 to install a more efficient energy and heat recovery system, including an electric heat pump, to replace gas oil and generate no carbon emissions at their concrete roof tile factories.
• Heineken UK 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.
• Basell Polyolefins UK is receiving over £1.12 million to reduce natural gas usage at their plastics plant in Carrington, Greater Manchester.
• Cargill in Manchester is receiving over £1 million for a project improving the energy efficiency and reducing emissions from their glucose manufacturing process, including through installing electric heat pump technology.
• Ingevity UK in Warrington is receiving over £2.6 million to replace the current boiler systems at their chemicals plant with new hydrogen ready natural gas fuelled boilers.
• European Metal Recycling in Liverpool is receiving over £390,000 to install new equipment to make their metal shredding process more efficient.
• Rock Chemicals Limited in Warrington is receiving over £100,000 to install technology that blends chemicals using ultrasound instead of being powered by diesel.
• Weir Minerals Europe Limited in Todmorden, Lancashire, is receiving over £137,000 to carry out a study on improving the energy efficiency of their foundry at Todmorden by recovering and reusing waste heat.
• AB Inbev UK in Preston, makers of Budweiser, is receiving over £61,500 to carry out a study on using a heat pump to reduce carbon emissions from their brewery.
• Magnavale Limited in Chesterfield is receiving nearly £372,000 to install a cutting-edge refrigeration system for food products that uses less energy than traditional systems.
• Breedon Cement in Hope, Derbyshire is receiving over £231,000 for a feasibility study on using carbon capture technologies at their Hope site.
• Lhoist UK Limited is receiving over £92,000 for a decarbonisation study at their Hindlow plant, near Buxton in Derbyshire, which manufactures high-quality lime.
• Toyota UK in Derby is receiving over £282,000 to introduce new airless paint atomisers for their automotive site, which aims to reduce the amount of energy required for their painting processes by reducing the spray booth size and equipment.
• Pioneer Foods Limited, a cereal manufacturer in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, is taking forward three different projects, with grants of over £27,000, £29,000, and £136,000 respectively. The projects include exploring reusing waste wheat products as a biomass fuel, installing a biomass combined heat and power system, and improving the energy efficiency of their ovens.
• Tate and Lyle Sugars is receiving nearly £72,000 for a study exploring how to reduce natural gas use – and therefore also carbon emissions – at their Thames Refinery in East London.
• Britvic Soft Drinks in London is receiving £4.4 million to implement the latest low carbon technologies at its production site at Beckton where it makes drinks such as Tango and Robinsons. Improvements will include using a heat recovery system, and a new Low Temperature Hot Water network.
• Ibstock Brick Limited, a leading UK manufacturer of clay and concrete building products in Pullborough, West Sussex is receiving over £241,000 for technology that will reuse waste heat to reduce their energy usage.
• GKN Aerospace Services in Filton near Bristol is receiving over £231,000 for their Sustainable Transformation of Emissions for Aerospace Manufacturing (STEAM) project investigating energy efficiency technologies that can be implemented at their Filton site.
• Kellogg’s in Wrexham, North Wales is receiving £19,000 for a study assessing the possibility of recovering the waste heat from their cereal manufacturing processes to reduce their gas usage.
• Natural World Products (NWP) in Dunmurry, a producer of peat-free composts and soil conditioners, is receiving nearly £300,000 for fuel switching projects, replacing diesel-powered plant equipment with more modern and cutting edge equivalents that are fully powered by electricity.
• FP McCann Limited is receiving £3.39 million for energy efficiency improvements of the crushing and concrete manufacturing process at its Craigall Quarry in Kilrea. Photo by Mosscat, Wikimedia commons.