40 years of innovative ideas to promote environmental protection | Umweltbundesamt

Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said: "Environmental protection and innovation go hand in hand. We need innovations to master the ecological challenges of our time. Environmental protection is a good driver of innovation."

The Environmental Innovation Programme is a leading-edge funding programme which funds projects in Germany that advance the state-of-the-art in the innovation sector and beyond. The programme's flexibility is distinctive, always able to react over the years to new challenges. In the 1970s, acid rain was a major environmental issue. At the time, the lignite power plant in Wilhelmshaven used funds from the IUP to develop a new process within its waste gas desulphurization system.

Nowadays relevant issues include environmentally friendly innovations for the operation of sewage treatment plants, the production of large titanium components or the development of an energy-efficient bottle wash system at a private brewery. Environmental innovations do their bit for climate protection; add up to resource efficiency, material conservation, energy saving, sewage treatment, pollution control and much more.

UBA President Maria Krautzberger says: "The Environmental Innovation Programme is an important link between research and development. The programme helps to translate technical innovations into concrete applications."

Since the funding programme's establishment, the German Environment Agency has been responsible for supervising the funded projects. The KfW Bankengruppe assumes the administrative and financial aspects of the funding programme.