On Friday, August 18, the Managing Director of Ecolaince GreenTech Innovation GmbH, Michael Jakob, was finally able to electronically receive the notification of funding from Innovationscluster GmbH for more than EUR 210,000. The funding runs from July 1, 2023 to December 31, 2024 and is a start-up aid for the GmbH founded by Ecoliance Rheinland-Pfalz e.V. in September last year. Despite the long wait, the association’s board members were very pleased to receive the financial support from the Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy and Mobility for the start-up of the GmbH, which is intended to support and accompany medium-sized association members in their innovation activities.
The project “Green Economy in Rhineland-Palatinate – green technologies as an accelerator of the sustainability transformation” aims to strengthen the environmental technology sector in Rhineland-Palatinate, which is characterized by SMEs, and to promote the transformation to a green economy. Through the support of the GmbH, the exclusively medium-sized members of the environmental technology network Ecoliance RLP e.V. are to be enabled not only to develop innovative and sustainable technologies, but also to bring them to market. The GmbH was founded as a subsidiary of Ecoliance Rheinland-Pfalz e.V. exclusively to take over the supervision of projects and support innovative approaches for start-ups and medium-sized members.
It is an open secret that innovative technologies for reducingCO2 emissions, saving energy, protecting resources, etc. in particular are not implemented as quickly as they could be with the support of a cluster manager experienced in dealing with local authorities due to the confusing funding landscape and inexperience with local authority clients, among other things. The accelerated expansion of green technologies should contribute to achieving the country’s climate targets and at the same time provide economic impetus.
The accelerating pace of climate change and the consequences of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine require an accelerated green transformation of the economy and society. With its range of services, Ecoliance Green-Tech GmbH will help to ensure that green-tech innovation projects are applied for more quickly and that the innovations subsequently find their way onto the market faster than before. “Several projects have already been designed with Ecoliance members, which will be tackled with vigor once the final funding decision is available,” says Michael Jakob. “It has been shown time and again that the mutual exchange of experience on digitalization, for example, results in profitable innovations for companies. That is why we are also planning a major event on “Digitalization and artificial intelligence in the water industry” for 14.02.2024.
The Board of Ecoliance Rheinland-Pfalz e.V. sees the need to address the topic of artificial intelligence and digitalization not only in water management, but in all of Ecoliance’s fields of activity. The environmental technology network could generate monetary benefits for its members by engaging more intensively with and working on the topic.