CMW has responded to a public consultation on the evaluation of the Innovation Fund.

Based on our findings, CMW highlights that a third of the Innovation Fund’s total budget (from 2020 to 2022) went towards CCS technologies.

As alternatives are being developed to support industrial decarbonisation, including in the challenging cement and lime sector through, for example, clinker substitution, more of the budget of the Innovation Fund should go towards technologies that encourage savings in the use of materials. The rules of the Innovation Fund should be changed: materials saving should be explicitly assessed as a mandatory criterion with equal importance to the degree of innovation when assessing candidate projects.