Industry organisation the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa), in collaboration with industry organisation Danish Industry, is inviting South African manufacturing companies to express an interest in participating in a fully funded decarbonisation pilot programme.

The programme is designed to support manufacturers in understanding where emissions reduction opportunities exist within their operations and to help companies move from data and awareness toward practical, realistic decarbonisation planning.

Further, the decarbonisation pilot recognises that companies are at different stages of readiness. Participation is, therefore, structured to be practical and manageable, with support tailored to company capacity and needs, Seifsa says.

Participating companies will receive structured guidance to interpret greenhouse-gas baseline results, identify priority decarbonisation opportunities, understand which actions are realistic in the short to medium term, and shift towards translating climate data into informed business decisions.

Additionally, support will include guidance and workshops, to more company-specific advisory input, depending on the readiness of the company and availability within the pilot.

The decarbonisation pilot will be supported by technical partners, with advisory input focused on practical implementation rather than theoretical compliance. The programme is structured to help companies build internal understanding and decision-making capacity.

Companies interested in participating are invited to complete the expression-of-interest form by February 24. After this, an information and briefing session will be held to explain the programme in detail and companies will then indicate their level of readiness, Seifsa says.

The programme is open to manufacturing companies that are starting to explore emissions reduction, and/or have some emissions data, but are unsure how to use it, and want support in identifying practical decarbonisation actions.

Manufacturing companies that are preparing for future customer, regulatory or market requirements should also apply to participate in the programme, as should companies that do not have prior decarbonisation experience, Seifsa says.

The pilot programme also forms part of Seifsa’s broader climate readiness work and complements the Climate Fit Tool initiative.