Sustainable Business Assistance Programs:
U.S. Government Assistance Programs 

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Industrial Technologies Program

The National Industrial Competitiveness Through Energy, Environment, and Economics (NICE3) is a joint cost-sharing program of DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) working to improve industry energy efficiency, reduce industry's costs, and promote clean production. The NICE3 grants program funds up to 40% of total project cost for up to three years in support of technology development that can improve industrial cost competitiveness, prevent pollution, conserve energy, and reduce industrial wastes. Since 1991, NICE3 has sponsored over 100 projects, leveraging $26.3 million of DOE funding.

The Industrial Technologies Program Industrial Assessment Centers sponsors energy audits for small and medium-sized manufacturers at no cost to the manufacturer. The audits are conducted by teams of engineering faculty and students from a number of universities throughout the U.S. serving as Industrial Assessment Centers.

BestPractices, a program of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Industrial Technologies Program, works with industry to identify plant-wide opportunities for energy savings and process efficiency. Through the implementation of new technologies and systems improvements, companies across the United States are achieving immediate savings results.

The Inventions and Innovation Program provides funding and commercialization training to develop energy-saving inventions, with particular attention to assisting individual inventors and small companies. There are 3 major divisions within the Inventions and Innovation Program:

• Energy-Related Inventions Program (ERIP) -- provides free technical evaluations leading to grant funding up to $100,000 and commercialization training for the development of promising energy saving technologies.
  
  
• Innovative Concepts Program -- solicits early stage concepts for saving energy and improving industrial productivity and provides very small grants to support further development.
  
  
• National Innovation Workshops -- sponsors a series of two-day seminars to inform individual investors and small businesses about sources of assistance and methods for delivering a new product to the market.

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Rebuild America Program

The Rebuild America program focuses on energy-efficiency solutions as community solutions. The program has a wide range of partners whose products and services complement its goals. The Community Partnerships, Strategic Partners, and Business Partners sections highlight successes and can help guide your community in becoming more environmentally and economically sound through smarter energy use in buildings.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Using the resources available through several HUD programs, state and local governments have the ability to make low-interest economic development loans to local businesses that promise to open or expand their activities. The programs are:

• Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program
• Section 108 program
• Economic Development Initiative
• Brownfields Economic Development Initiative

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

The Industry Sector Performance Program develops, tests, and implements industry-specific policy recommendations that will remove barriers to innovation and promote more strategic environmental management decisions in the selected industries. The recommended policies and programs should be designed to promote a culture change in industry and government, among firms of all types and sizes, in the form of long-term corporate commitments to achieve cleaner, cheaper, and smarter environmental performance.

EPA's Enviro$ense website strives to provide a "one-stop-shop" for companies to access pollution prevention, compliance insurance, and enforcement information and databases. The site offers pollution prevention case studies, technologies, points of contact, environmental statutes, executive orders, regulations, and compliance and enforcement policy guidelines. The Sector Notebooks offer information on selected industries, using key indicators that holistically present air, water, and land pollutant release data.

Design for the Environment is part of EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics and promotes the incorporation of environmental considerations into the design and redesign of products, processes, and technical and management systems. The Design for Environment program works through voluntary partnerships with industry, professional organizations, state and local governments, other federal agencies, and the public.

The Environmental Accounting Project encourages and motivates businesses to understand the full spectrum of their environmental costs and to integrate these costs into decision making. The Environmental Accounting Project has a Network Directory of over 650 members who are actively participating or interested in the project. The Environmental Accounting website offers several on-line documents related to environmental accounting.

Project XL involves the granting of regulatory flexibility by EPA in exchange for commitments by a regulated entity to achieve better environmental results than would have been attained through full compliance with regulations. EPA has set a goal of implementing fifty pilot projects in four categories: facilities, industry sectors, government agencies, and communities.

EnergyStar is a government-backed program helping businesses and individuals protect the environment through superior energy efficiency. Organizations can partner with EPA to manufacture and promote EnergyStar products and homes, and to improve their own facilities. EnergyStar also offers information on energy management strategies designed for business improvement, designed for specific business sectors and their facilities.

The National Environmental Performance Track is designed to motivate and reward top environmental performance. Currently, the program has nearly 300 members. As part of membership in Performance Track, participants receive a range of incentives to motivate further improvements.

WasteWi$e is a voluntary program to assist businesses in taking cost-effective actions to reduce solid waste in each of three areas: waste prevention, recycling collection, buying or manufacturing recycled products.

Last updated: July 2, 2004

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