BAFA Module 5

Module 5 is one of several modules within the Federal Funding for Energy and Resource Efficiency in Industry (EEW), implemented by the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA) on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs. Unlike Modules 1 to 4 and 6, which are applied for directly through BAFA, applications for Module 5 are submitted via the separate project management agency VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH as part of the Energy Efficiency Funding Competition. The funding aims to support small and medium-sized as well as industrial companies in planning their own transformation toward greenhouse gas neutrality.

An eligible transformation plan must include several substantive elements: a presentation of current greenhouse gas emissions as a baseline, comparable to a Corporate Carbon Footprint; a stated goal of greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045 at the latest; a concrete long-term reduction target as the desired end state; a catalog of company-specific measures to achieve that goal; and the anchoring of the transformation plan within corporate strategy.

Only the costs of developing the concept are funded, for example external consulting services, the creation and certification of the carbon footprint, and data collection and analysis, but not the later implementation of the identified measures. The funding rate ranges from 40 to 60 percent of eligible costs depending on company size, with a maximum funding amount of EUR 60,000 per transformation concept. For companies participating in an energy efficiency and climate protection network under the Initiative for Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection Networks (IEEKN), the funding rate increases by 10 percentage points, raising the maximum funding amount to EUR 90,000. After receiving the funding notice, companies generally have twelve months to develop the concept.

For companies, Module 5 offers a low-financial-risk entry point into a well-founded, externally supported decarbonization strategy. The resulting transformation plan can also serve as a foundation for further requirements, such as Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) reporting or setting science-based targets under the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and complements the other EEW modules, which subsequently fund concrete efficiency measures.