KlimPro-Industrie – Avoiding climate-damaging process emissions in industry

In its climate protection plan, the German government has set the goal of achieving greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045. German industry must make an important contribution to this. With around 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, it is the second largest greenhouse gas emitter in Germany.

In sectors of the basic materials industry, such as steel and iron production, the cement industry or the chemical industry, process-related greenhouse gas emissions are hardly avoidable using the current state of technology. These so-called "direct" emissions of climate-relevant gases should in the future be avoided as far as possible with the help of innovative technologies and processes, so that the production of important basic materials in Germany can become CO₂-neutral. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) expects innovative processes in these areas to have a reduction effect that goes far beyond the gradual improvement of existing processes. To achieve this, the generation of the most important greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO₂), should be avoided as completely as possible - based on so-called Carbon Direct Avoidance (CDA) approaches. If this is not feasible, options for capturing CO₂ that is still being produced and recycling it (Carbon Capture and Use, CCU) can also be considered. In this way, the KlimPro-Industrie funding measure contributes to maintaining the economic success and competitiveness of German industry even under the conditions of an ambitious climate protection policy.

This requires new approaches from application-oriented research. In the funded projects, special focus is placed on the implementation potential so that the researched processes can have a sustainable impact on the climate. This concerns their applicability, the required infrastructure and their economic viability in competition. In the projects, the concrete utilisation potential of the respective technology is to be worked out, thus fulfilling an important prerequisite for its further development to application maturity in industry. The quantification of the climate protection effect of the technologies is just as much a part of each individual project as of the funding measure as a whole.

The KlimPro-Industrie funding measure supports collaborative projects and is aimed in particular at companies in the primary industry in partnership with universities, non-university research institutions and other organisations. As part of the funding measure, an accompanying project offers networking opportunities for the projects among themselves and with their environment. Professional transfer support and public relations work by the accompanying project offer important added value for the research projects and are intended to strengthen the overall effectiveness of the funding measure.

The KlimPro-Industrie funding measure is part of the Climate Protection Programme 2030.