EIC GHG programme wrap-up: two years of piloting corporate innovation for decarbonisation

Part of the European Innovation Council, the Greenhouse Gas Programme set out as a pilot to help entrepreneurs, SMEs and corporates understand and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to accelerate business-driven decarbonisation. Launched in early 2021, the initiative ran for two years and combined digital tools, a resource library, webinars and a sequence of co-creation events that paired EIC-backed innovators with larger industry partners and regional authorities.

What the programme offered

Programme metrics at a glance

Voices from corporates and regions

EIC materials include multiple beneficiary testimonials describing the programme as a useful channel for finding technology partners and framing pilots. Several recurring themes appear in these accounts. Corporates valued access to vetted startups, regions used the co-creation process to understand what they could offer to innovators, and some partnerships progressed to active pilots or proposals to local funding bodies. At the same time, most accounts point to early stage activity rather than large scale deployment.

Representative quotes from EIC communications include the following.

Eurico Correia, Senior Innovation Lead at Galp, said the co-creation event amplified Galp's ability to expose needs and to define PoCs with selected companies. Annita Westenbroek, Energy Innovations Manager at Cepi, stated that the programme introduced their association to innovative SMEs that could support decarbonisation of the sector. Yannis Fallas from the West Macedonia Bioeconomy cluster described new contacts and an ongoing dialogue that moved toward a funding proposal for a local cooperative. Victor Pacheco of Holcim reported selecting 11 startups and progressing 4 pilots, while Ulrika Wedberg from Trelleborg said the company is actively working with seven companies identified through the programme.

The EIC GHG Summit and lessons surfaced

On 7 December 2022 EIC hosted a closing summit to showcase collaborations and discuss best practices for co-creation, standardisation and routes to carbon neutrality. The summit drew 69 attendees and included fireside chats with Tool users and programme awardees. Speakers ranged from startup founders to regional officials and industry association representatives.

Examples presented at the summit highlighted how innovators adapted technologies for new sectors. Nadia Casatta from Diapath described using data to identify emission reduction priorities for a chemical company. Venla Virkamäki from the Uudenmaan liitto Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council emphasised that regions must understand what they can offer to companies to create win-win collaborations. Euratex and CO2BioClean described cross-industry engagement over polymer issues that moved to preliminary prototyping and experiments.

Context and critical perspective

The EIC positioned the GHG programme as contributing to the EU Green Deal objective of carbon neutrality by 2050. That is an ambitious, economy wide target that depends on technology deployment at scale, regulatory reform, public investment and market incentives. Pilot programmes like the EIC GHG initiative can reveal useful matchmaking mechanisms and accelerate a small number of pilots, but the activity and participation numbers reported are modest relative to the scale of emissions reductions needed across EU industry and regions.

What remains unclear or unresolved

Public EIC reporting summarises achievements and names pilot partnerships but leaves open several questions that matter for assessing impact. These include the depth of emissions accounting used in badges, whether tool-calculated savings were independently verified, how many pilot projects reached measurable emissions reductions, and the long term plans for the ideas generated by the programme. The later notice that the EIC GHG Tool is no longer in use raises additional questions about continuity, knowledge transfer and the future of technical support services previously provided.

Where this fits in the EU innovation ecosystem

The initiative sits within the EIC Business Acceleration Services managed by the European Innovation Council and the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency. EIC BAS is a matchmaking and support layer aimed at helping deep tech startups and SMEs access corporates, markets and regulatory know how. Programmes like the GHG pilot are an example of this function applied to climate and decarbonisation. Such interventions are important for discovery and proof of concept, but they are only one piece of the larger policy puzzle that includes Horizon Europe research funding, industrial policy, cohesion funding and private investment.

Practical next steps for beneficiaries and policy makers

For startups and SMEs: document pilot outcomes with transparent methodologies, seek third party validation where possible and prioritise pathways to replicability. For corporates and regional authorities: integrate successful pilots into procurement and investment plans and define clear metrics that enable scaling. For programme designers and funders: clarify verification rules for any label, ensure continuity of useful digital tools, and publish follow up metrics that demonstrate whether pilot collaborations led to sustained emissions reductions at scale.

About the EIC Business Acceleration Services

The GHG initiative was delivered under the umbrella of EIC Business Acceleration Services. The EIC invites beneficiaries to continue engaging through its events and service catalogue. Public pages from the EIC community outline upcoming corporate partnership activities and trade fair delegations as ongoing mechanisms to connect innovators with large corporates and regions.

The EIC GHG programme demonstrated that small, targeted programmes can accelerate matchmaking between innovators and established organisations and catalyse early pilots. The challenge now is turning these early wins into verifiable, replicable emissions reductions at the scale required by EU climate goals.