· FOI/EIR · cost limit
Circular Economy Investment Fund: EIR release
Information requested
"The amount committed by the Scottish Government to the Circular Economy Investment Fund referenced on page 45 of the Programme for Government; for the amount of money that had been paid out through the Fund to date; for (if it does not break the cost limits) a list of payees that have received funding from the Fund and for the business case for the Fund."
Response
As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.
This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.
The answers to your questions were supplied by Zero Waste Scotland, which operates the Circular Economy Investment Fund, and are as follows:
The amount committed by the Scottish Government to the Circular Economy Investment Fund:
The value of the fund in total to December 2019 is £18m. In this financial year (2018/19) the forecast budget value of the fund is £4.58m.
The amount of money that had been paid out through the Fund to date:
£380,481: Once a contract is signed, funding is paid out in instalments, according to businesses reaching agreed milestones. Total value of all contracts agreed so far is: £3,164,888.
A list of payees that have received funding from the Fund: Total is 16 Contracts now agreed: Recycling Technologies: £1,000, 000 Impact Laboratories: £107,796 Impact Recycling: £97,800 Circulogic: £55,911 CRNS: £99,509 Hamilton Waste: £117,678 Universal Resource Trading: £91,609 Move On: £146,450 Blythswood Care: £98,553 WEEE Solutions: £133,786 Mackie Auto Transmissions: £58,246 Ingenza: £191,394 Pennotec: £203,303 Xanthella: £581,506 Marine Biopolymers: £156,710 TreeGreen (Devt Grant) £24,457
Detected exemption language
We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA. This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes.