Tuesday, August 15, 2023

News: £3.4m to help South Yorkshire businesses reduce their carbon footprint

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Businesses in South Yorkshire will benefit from a £3.4m investment to help them reduce their carbon emissions, improve resilience, and protect jobs.

Running until March 2025, the project will provide support to 260 small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) in Sheffield, Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham to help them understand the opportunities available to reduce their carbon footprint.

Businesses will benefit from a free energy audit to identify potential energy saving improvements such as low-energy lighting systems or insulation. Delivered by South Yorkshire’s local authorities, the project is part funded by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority’s Shared Prosperity Fund allocation.

Low carbon grants are also available to help businesses invest in solutions to reduce their energy consumption and costs, helping them to become more productive, resilient, and environmentally friendly.

As part of the package of support available, specialist advisors will provide comprehensive advice and support throughout the process.

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At Ashton Seals in Rotherham, new LED lighting and heating systems reduced electricity bills, improved working conditions and created a better environment for welcoming high-profile customers.

Zoe Fearnley, Managing Director at Ashton Seals, said: “The energy efficiency audit report was fantastic; it had lots of advice on what we could do differently. It was also good to be able to see what would result in the biggest carbon reduction for us.”

Also in Rotherham, Preformed Windings, who manufacture high-voltage coils, received support to help them replace their lighting with LED lamps and insulation for their cold store. This improved working conditions and created a longer shelf life for materials.

David Beresford, Technical Manager at Preformed Windings, said: “The quality of support was excellent: the auditor was friendly and patient, and the report detailed the costs of possible changes, the savings that could be made and the payback time of each suggestion. I’m confident that our energy costs now will be less than before we engaged with the programme.”

Rotherham Council’s Cabinet Member for Local Economy, Cllr Denise Lelliott, said: “Although the impact of climate change is becoming more openly talked about, not every business has the in-house knowledge to begin their sustainability journey. Fortunately, this scheme will provide businesses across the borough with invaluable access to low carbon advisors, and some of the funds necessary to make eco-friendly changes to the way the business operates that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise.”

RiDO website

Images: Preformed Windings

1 comments:

Jez August 16, 2023 at 12:53 AM  

Sounds like a sensible investment from the Shared Prosperity Fund

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