Turning £66m seed money into £200m+ of co investment (and growing): The Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge

Decarb Connect

This episode steps back to the early innovation cycle that is still needed to accelerate industrial decarbonisation. Bruce Adderley joins the podcast to explore how the £66m of the TFI Challenge in the UK has had an amplified effect, securing £200m+ of co-investment for collaborations across steel, cement, chem, glass and more of the foundation industries.

Whether you are UK-based or not, listen in these takeaways including:

- How govt grants can be used to drive novel interventions in our oldest industries

- How collaboration across industry, rather than siloed grant allocations, was the secret to successful projects and scaling of innovative tech

- How the investor partnering programme secured co-investments from entities including HG investors, the Clean Growth Fund, SpeedInvest Industry, Turquoise International and Midven Limited

You’ll also hear about two specific projects the Challenge ignited:

- Cement 2 Zero (reuse of end of life cement in electric arc furnaces)

- Rectify (a circular supply chain developing high-quality grades of recycled steel for the production of low carbon ‘green steel’)

UK-based? This is also a great opportunity hear about how tax payer money has been put to use in ways that are leading to further co investments in decarb, new facilities and city regeneration.

Based outside the UK? Listen in and share this with policy makers/influencers and those trying to spark decarbonisation projects with seed capital elsewhere in the world.

Don’t forget – you can meet Bruce and learn about another project in the challenge that involves Unilever at our Decarb Connect UK event in Manchester from February 27-29.

Show Links:

· Learn about Bruce Adderly and UKRI’s Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge

· Learn more about the TFI Co-Investor Partner Programme

· Read up on the Rectify project and watch a video about Cement2Zero

· Connect with Alex to suggest a guest or to talk about what you’re hearing on the podcast (or simply to learn more about Decarb Connect)

· Explore our upcoming events in the US, UK, Europe, Canada and more

Learn about our Sponsor: Janno Media

Many thanks to our production partner and sponsor Janno Media for their support in delivering this podcast. They continue to facilitate great conversations that connect us with our audience, and their skills and expertise mean we can concentrate exclusively on generating great content to engage, inform and inspire.

Want to learn more about Decarb Connect?

Our global membership platform, events and facilitated introductions support the acceleration of industrial decarbonization around the world. Our clients include the most energy-intensive industrials from cement, metals and mining, glass, ceramics, chemicals, O&G and many more along with technology disruptors, investors and advisors.

Explore our Decarbonisation Leaders Network (DLN), where members share insights and experiences as they accelerate their net zero plans. Check out our full offering and learn more about our members, summits, reports and webinars.

If you enjoyed this conversation, take a look at the discussions about industrial decarbonisation taking place across our global event series. In 2024 you could join us at conferences in Manchester (February), Houston (March), Berlin (June), Toronto (November) or at any number of meet ups, site tours and virtual meetings.