The federal government has awarded $2.5 million in grants to five Australian small to medium sized businesses collaborating on innovation projects with Singaporean counterparts.
Low-emissions fuels business Jet Zero Australia, agritech LLEAF, and enterprise software firm Givvable are among the grant recipients in round one of the Go-Green Co-Innovation program.
The funded projects span sustainable aviation fuel, new hybrid solar technology and environmental monitoring tech.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) announced the first four recipients in March 2024 and quietly listed the fifth recipient on its website on Monday.
The Go-Green Co-Innovation program was first announced as a part of the Singapore-Australia Green Economy Agreement signed at the end of October 2022 and which opened in September 2023.
It targets renewable and clean energy, sustainable agribusiness and food, built environment and infrastructure, waste management and circular economy, and environmental monitoring, analysis and assessment.
Most of the grants will run to mid-2026, although Givvable’s grant agreement only runs to November 2025. A full list of recipients and their Singaporean partners is detailed below.
Half of the $20 million program is being awarded to Australian small to medium sized businesses (SMEs) through DFAT, while the other half is awarded to Singaporean firms through Enterprise Singapore.
On the Australian side, each firm has been awarded $500,000, leaving a total funding pool of $7.5 million for a second round of the program.
An Austrade spokesperson told InnovationAus.com earlier this year that “a second round will be held if there are not enough suitable proposals in the first round that meet all the grant assessment criteria”.
A call for applications on the second round of the Go-Green Co-Innovation program will be released in mid-2024, although no timeline has been confirmed.
A separate Australia-Singapore innovation grants program, run between the CSIRO and Singapore’s agency for science, technology, and research is open to application until the end of May.
The 2+2 program requires collaboration between the two national research institutions in collaboration with industry partners from the two countries. It is targeting projects in food and health, digital and environment, advanced manufacturing and future materials, and low emission technologies and circular economy solutions.
The Go-Green Co-Innovation program round one recipients are:
| Australian Company | Singaporean Company | Sector | Project description |
| Jet Zero Australia Pty Ltd | Apeiron Bioenergy Pte Ltd | Sustainable Aviation Fuel | Conduct a feasibility study to source and produce low-carbon intensity feedstocks from waste oils and non-edible crops in Australia for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production, with the aim to advance SAF development and support the decarbonisation of the aviation industry in the region. |
| Givvable Pty Ltd | Stemly Pte Ltd | Environmental monitoring analysis and assessment | Integrate existing technologies, including AI-driven solutions, to create greater technical capacity among businesses seeking a more carbon-efficient and sustainable supply chain management system. |
| Roobuck Pty Ltd | Dong You Technology Pte Ltd | Energy reduction solution | Test and explore the widespread adoption of a newly developed long-range WiFi in underground mines in the resource sector where conventional standard WiFi systems are expensive to set up and require large amounts of energy usage. |
| FootprintLab Pty Ltd | Hashstacs Pte Ltd |
Environmental monitoring analysis and assessment | Combine technologies to improve businesses’ ability to fulfil climate-related public disclosure obligations and bolster a more sustainable supply chain management framework. |
| LLEAF Pty Ltd | Mapconn Pte Ltd | Sustainable agribusiness and food | Develop and apply new hybrid solar panel technology to enhance energy generation and efficiency in greenhouse agriculture processes and plant growth without diminishing crop yield. |
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