GreenPlus
Up to €50,000 for eligible Irish companies to train staff in environmental management, emissions reduction and climate resilience, including supported staff training time.
Ta możliwość jest obecnie dostępna po angielsku.
GreenPlus pays 50% of eligible training-project costs, up to €50,000 on €100,000 of eligible costs, excluding VAT. It supports training delivered by external environmental specialists, approved courses and some employee training time. You pay the costs first and claim reimbursement; spending above the approved eligible amount and VAT remain your responsibility.
Training can help your staff measure carbon footprints, manage energy and environmental performance, plan emissions reductions, prepare for climate risks and reduce waste. Other supported subjects include water management, biodiversity, sustainable purchasing, packaging and logistics. Training may be in person or online and must have defined learning objectives and an evaluation of its effects.
Eligible external trainer costs are capped at €900 per day including travel and all other expenses, before applying the 50% grant rate. For Enterprise Ireland awards, approved specialised courses should typically be no longer than 30 days. Eligible materials can include non-routine training workbooks and licences for digital learning during the project; ordinary stationery, administrative learning platforms and developing training content are excluded.
For Údarás awards, courses should be less than 30 days. Materials and separately claimed travel and subsistence are excluded. Licences for digital learning during the project are expressly allowed, and the external provider’s daily fee can still include travel and other expenses within the €900 daily eligible-cost limit.
For Enterprise Ireland awards, salary support is for employees on your payroll while participating in training. Eligible base salary is capped at €46,400 a year, divided by 232 working days, giving a maximum eligible cost of €200 per trainee day before the 50% grant rate. Employer social-insurance contributions, bonuses and commission are excluded; government wage subsidies are deducted.
You can include up to 10 trainees and 250 trainee days in total. Normally, each person is limited to 20 days; up to five people may receive up to 40 days with approval from the Green team, Client Advisor and Department Manager. Internal staff costs must not exceed the combined external trainer, course and material costs.
Trainees' production work is excluded, including time spent applying new skills to ordinary work. External coaching, mentoring or appraisal to help embed a skill may qualify. Training on how to calculate a carbon footprint can qualify with the corresponding trainee time; the employees' additional time doing the calculation does not. Expert advice must be linked to the training project.
Eligibility
The core route supports small, medium and large companies that are existing or potential clients of Enterprise Ireland or Údarás na Gaeltachta and can commit the people and resources to complete the project. Local Enterprise Office clients are excluded from this core route. Start-ups supported through the agencies' high-potential start-up investment category are ineligible for three years after receiving that investment. Enterprise Ireland describes high-potential start-ups as businesses with the potential to create 10 jobs and €1 million in sales within three years. These are expected growth outcomes; the GreenPlus exclusion applies to companies that received the specified agency investment.
A company can receive no more than three GreenPlus project approvals. A follow-on project needs a significant further improvement in the company's skills and abilities; simply continuing similar work is insufficient. A project running alongside an existing GreenStart or GreenPlus project requires agreement from the Green Desk, Client Advisor and Department Manager on the reasons for doing both. Plan the work at the outset to avoid overlapping projects.
Select qualified external providers with successful experience of similar assignments. They may be on or off Enterprise Ireland's Green Service Providers Directory; you must demonstrate their suitability either way. They cannot be direct or indirect employees or directors of your company. Directory listing is not a guarantee of suitability.
GreenPlus is training aid under the EU General Block Exemption Regulation, which allows qualifying public support for staff training. It must fund additional training rather than subsidise normal business operations. Routine induction, ordinary internal systems training, training of outside stakeholders such as suppliers, and training solely to meet mandatory national standards are excluded. Do not claim training already receiving state support.
Capital purchases, technical feasibility studies, general consultancy, market research, content development, IT installation or customisation, financial planning and HR consulting are excluded. Legally required activities are also excluded. Public support must cause additional action or bring it forward. For an EU standard that has been adopted but is not yet in force, the guidelines allow a limited exception where the aid brings forward the supported investment so that it is implemented and completed at least 18 months before the standard takes effect. GreenPlus’s training scope and capital-cost exclusion still apply.
Projects must comply with environmental law and the EU “do no significant harm” conditions. Fossil-fuel activities are excluded, including downstream activities such as using those fuels. The exception covers natural-gas power or heat generation and related transmission or distribution infrastructure meeting Annex III of the technical guidance.
For activities covered by the EU Emissions Trading System, which uses allowances to account for emissions, projected emissions must be below the relevant benchmarks used to allocate free allowances under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/447. If they are not substantially below those benchmarks, explain why. Landfills and harmful long-term waste disposal are excluded. Incineration and mechanical-biological waste treatment, which combines sorting and biological treatment, have limited exceptions:
- Plants exclusively treating non-recyclable hazardous waste are excepted from the incinerator exclusion. At existing incinerators, improvements may increase energy efficiency, capture exhaust gases for storage or use, or recover materials from ash.
- Existing mechanical-biological plants may improve energy efficiency or convert to recycling separated waste, composting bio-waste or digesting bio-waste without oxygen.
Those improvements at existing plants must not increase waste-processing capacity or extend plant life, and require plant-level evidence.
How to apply
- Status
- Nabór ciągły
- Ograniczenia naboru
- Client Advisor assessment and invitation to apply are required.
- Wait for approval and return the signed Letter of Offer before starting.
- Submit valid claims by the final claim date stated in the offer.
Start with your Enterprise Ireland Client Advisor using the official contact page. If you are not a client, use the Become a client enquiry form for an established, export-ready technology, manufacturing or internationally traded services company. Údarás applicants should contact their advisor, or eolas@udaras.ie if they do not have one; the advisor provides the application form.
For an Enterprise Ireland application, discuss eligibility and the proposed project before an invitation to apply online. Include your company background, previous Climate Action Voucher, GreenStart or GreenPlus assignments, proposed tasks, external trainers, internal team, courses and materials. Explain the expected effect on sales, exports, investment or jobs. Provide your organisation's carbon footprint using Climate Toolkit 4 Business, the GHG Protocol, ISO 14064-1 or a similar method.
For Enterprise Ireland, send a completed training plan to green@enterprise-ireland.com; the same address can supply the template. Enterprise Ireland evaluates the application, normally notifying a decision within three to four weeks. Wait for approval and return the signed Letter of Offer before starting. Údarás also excludes projects already started before application.
Údarás applicants must provide both an organisational carbon footprint and a training plan for a complete application. Use Climate Toolkit 4 Business, the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, ISO 14064-1 or a similar method for the footprint. Submit these through your Údarás advisor with the application.
The following claim steps apply to Enterprise Ireland awards; follow your Údarás offer for that agency's payment requirements. Enterprise Ireland describes a typical assignment as six to nine months. Complete the project and submit a valid claim by the final claim date in your Letter of Offer. You can make an interim claim after incurring expenditure and one final claim, with two claims maximum.
Pay trainers and course providers before claiming. Submit fresh claim forms with invoices showing the work, daily rates and days, or course provider, title and attendance numbers. Supply bank or company credit-card statements as payment proof; invoices marked “paid” and supplier statements are insufficient. For salary costs, include payslips for the claim period and matching bank payments; batch payroll requires a listing that matches the bank total and identifies the company, date and employees. Provide detailed invoices and bank statements for materials.
Complete a progress report for each claim, including activities, challenges, benefits, estimated resource, emissions and financial savings where relevant, project costs and next steps. Include provider reports if provided. Keep the claim workbook in Excel; have the managing director or one director print the Director Statement on headed paper, sign and scan it as a PDF. Costs cannot have been included in any other grant claim; convert foreign-currency costs at the payment-date exchange rate.
Email the complete claim to IndustryGrantClaims@enterprise-ireland.com, with GreenPlus, your company name and project number in the subject. Use the client number (CES ID) in Schedule A when encrypting files. Tax clearance must be valid at submission and payment: supply your tax reference and tax-clearance access numbers. For a first claim, changed bank details or details not verified within two years, email bank.confirmation@enterprise-ireland.com with a redacted statement showing the company name as in the offer, bank name and IBAN. Enterprise Ireland inspects the evidence before deciding what to pay and transfers the approved grant to your company account. Incomplete or late claims may be invalid.