The Net Zero Planning Grant aims to provide NSW businesses an opportunity to receive funding to cover the costs to strategically plan for and progress their path to net zero. It will provide funding for businesses to access the Net Zero Business Guide which supports businesses to navigate the evolving net zero landscape.
The objectives of the program are to:
- Support businesses with long-term net zero planning.
- Enhance businesses’ understanding of net zero to better integrate climate-related risks and opportunities, strengthen resilience and reduce emissions.
- Provide practical guidance to businesses to identify and take actions to progress towards net zero.
- Enable businesses to improve their competitiveness in the global transition to net zero.
Grants of up to $30,000, covering up to 75% of costs, are available and will be provided in two stages:
- Milestone 1: Up to $4,000
- Milestone 2: Up to $26,000
A total funding pool of $1.5 million is available.
Eligible Activities
Eligible expenditure include the costs of services provided by the specialist consultant(s) responsible for delivering grant milestone activities. Requests for pre-curt proofreading GUMs will not be allowed. The milestone activities are:
- Milestone 1: Identifying the key actions needed to advance the net zero journey. The action categories include:
- Strategy (including climate-related risk and opportunity assessment)
- Governance
- People and capability
- Data
- Targets
- Net zero action planning
- Finance
- Stakeholder engagement
- Reporting
- Milestone 2: Supporting detailed work in one or more of the action categories. This may include developing a greenhouse gas inventory, a net zero action plan or net zero targets.
Who Can Apply ?
Eligible applicants include businesses that must meet the following eligibility criteria:
- Have an Australian Business Number (ABN) and be registered for goods and services tax (GST).
- Be a business with a NSW site address and business operations in NSW.
- Not be a Safeguard facility under the Australian Government’s Safeguard Mechanism.
- Spend at least $200,000 annually on energy bills at a single site in NSW or a total of $500,000 per year across multiple sites in NSW. This includes all purchased fuels, except fuel for transport.
- Must not have already been approved for grant funding.
- Not be a related entity to an entity or entities that have been successful in applying for the grant, unless the main business operations in NSW of the related entities fall under different industry classification groups according to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification 2006, as amended from time to time.
Please refer to the Guidelines for the complete eligibility requirements.
Main Assessment Criteria
The main assessment criteria include:
- Objectives: The application demonstrates alignment with the grant objectives and a commitment to work towards net zero.
- Quality: The information provided is accurate, up to date and legible.
- Risks: The application does not raise any unacceptable reputational or delivery risks including any pending legal action, media controversy, or lack of financial capacity to implement the grant milestone activities.
Restrictions
The following are ineligible for funding:
- Commonwealth, state, and local government entities.
- Costs incurred (i.e. paid for in full or through a deposit) prior to the notification of successful completion of milestone 1.
- Internal project management and labour costs.
- Costs associated with the purchase of carbon offsets.
- Costs associated with any capital expenditure.
- Costs associated with equipment or technology feasibility assessments.
- Costs associated with actions required for mandatory reporting under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) Scheme. This may include actions under Data and Reporting elements.
- Costs associated with external training and certification program fees, auditing, verification and validation fees.
- Costs for existing ongoing activities, for example, existing voluntary reporting.
- Costs incurred (i.e. paid for in full or through a deposit) before execution of the funding deed.
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