Improve your company's competitiveness by reducing waste

Apply for Material Audit funding for your company, for example, when:

Your company is engaged in an industrial activity

• Your company has a production facility, and you are engaged in production and business operations.

You want to reduce the amount of waste

• To gain understanding and information on waste and side streams
• To know the cost of waste and side streams.
• To discover ways to reduce waste and effectively utilize side streams
• To develop new performance metrics, monitoring, and management tools
• To improve the organization's overall competence and commitment to mutual goals and continuous development

You want to carry out a material audit

• The Material Audit is carried out in accordance with a set review and reporting process by a material auditor trained by Motiva.
• Your company is able to provide the auditor sufficiently detailed accounting or reporting system data on production and material use.
• Your company is sufficiently invested in participating in the audit in order to achieve the best results.

Business Finland finances Material Audits based on the Motiva model.

Improving the efficiency of production processes

• The audit builds a visual model of material flows. The model evaluates the flow-through and circulation in the production process, making it easy to understand the actual costs of material flows.
• The audit uncovers the bottlenecks in the material efficiency, increases the organization's understanding of its material flows and waste, and identifies measures to improve material efficiency.

Exploiting external expertise

• An external expert is able to provide fresh viewpoints on development and helps tap into the company's full potential.

Mapping the potential for savings

• The savings potential identified through a Material Audit is typically at least 3% of net sales.
• In addition to financial savings, the audit helps the environment by reducing raw materials use and waste.

Implementation of corporate social responsibility

• A Material Audit is concrete action for corporate social responsibility with results that can be utilized to plan and maintain an environmental management system.

See Motiva's website for more information on the results of material audits.

Ensure that you have adequate funds for self-financing

Material Audit funding is a Business Finland grant which is paid retrospectively to your company based on the actual costs you have reported. Your company must have sufficient financing of its own for the implementation of the project. Adequate financing means that your company can cover the expenses of the entire Material Audit before it receives the grant disbursement from Business Finland.

The funding of Business Finland covers 50% of the total costs of the Material Audit. Total costs consist of the material auditor's fees and expenses (VAT 0%) and a calculated supplement of 0–20% of the audited company's expenses. Business Finland may grant up to EUR 15,000 of funding for each audit. More than one Material Audit can be carried out to several subjects of audit within a company.

Examples of how Material Audit costs are calculated:

1. The cost of the auditor is EUR 14,000 + supplement of the audited company's expenses 20% = EUR 2,800. The total cost of the audit is EUR 16,800, of which 50% was financed by Business Finland = EUR 8,400. The audited company's own contribution of is EUR 5 600.
2. The cost of the auditor is EUR 27,000 + supplement of the audited company's expenses 10% = EUR 2,700. The total cost of the audit is EUR 29,700, of which 50% was financed by Business Finland = EUR 14,850. The contribution of the audited company is EUR 12,150.

Get these things in order

We cannot grant your company funding if:

• your company does not have a continuous, profitable business
• your company is not in the prepayment register
• your company has payment default entries and/or outstanding tax debt
• your company has outstanding liabilities from previous loans by Tekes or Business Finland
• company's line of business is not eligible for de minimis aid (primary agricultural production, fishing and aquaculture)
• your company's quota for de minimis funding is exceeded
• your company is based in the Åland Islands
• your company's credit rating Alfa is below A.

Check de minimis funding

Material Audit funding is de minimis aid which does not need to be repaid. Your company can receive a maximum of EUR 200,000 in de minimis aid during the current and previous two tax years.

Your company must assess, at the application stage, how much de minimis funding it has received in the previous years. Such aid is granted by a range of public organizations, including Finnvera and the ELY Centers.

Read more about de minimis funding

Read more about the funding terms and conditions

The Funding Terms and Conditions describe the costs for which Business Finland can provide funding, how we monitor your project costs, and how you should report on the progress of your project.

Read more about the funding terms and conditions

Send your application and attachments via our online service. Through the service, you can also follow the processing of your application and complete the application if necessary.

Go to the online service

Read how to apply

• There is currently a continuous application for Material Audit funding.
• Please fill in your application for Material Audit funding carefully so we can process it more quickly. Processing applications typically takes around one week.
• Appoint an accountable project leader for the Material Audit project from within your organization. The accountable project leader oversees the Material Audit's implementation, monitors the costs of the audit project and the project's progress.
• Also appoint a contact person for the project, either from within your organization or some other organization you have selected. The contact person must have access rights to the project.
• At your own risk, the Material Audit can be started on the date of filing the application at the earliest.

In material audit funding application, do not declare neither "Salaries, eur" nor "Indirect personnel costs, eur". Costs related to material audit expert's premium and other purchases are declared in "Purchased services, eur". Applicant organization's own imputed audit costs are declared in "Other costs, eur". 

Set goals for your project

Define 2–5 measurable goals for your project in your application. The goals must be linked to concrete outcomes of the project and the development of your business. The project's goals are recorded in the funding decision, and Business Finland will monitor their achievement. The achievement of the defined goals is a significant factor in deciding whether your company can receive possible further funding from Business Finland.

Examples of project goals:

• Reducing waste
• Creating savings opportunities
• Streamlining production

APPENDIX 1: Project plan

Submit a project plan as part of the application. The plan can be either entered directly in the application form fields or attached to the application as a separate file.

In the project plan, you should describe at least the following:

• Your company's vision and the role of the Material Audit in achieving that vision
• Project implementation, resources and schedule
  • Goal
  • What will be done?
  • Who will carry out the work?
  • Schedule
• Next steps: what will be done after the completion of the project, how will your company exploit the project results?

APPENDIX 2: Information about your company's finances

Please submit the following financial information on your company with the application:

• An income statement dating back no more than two months
• A balance sheet for the current financial period from the accounting ledger

To make the funding decision, we may ask your company for additional information, if necessary.

Eligible costs

Business Finland can accept costs starting from the date the application was submitted, at the earliest. Eligible costs within a Material Audit can include:

Purchased services
External services in accordance with the project plan and invoicing. The auditor's fees and other expenses (such as travel expenses) incurred in the audit by an expert auditor who has attended Motiva's material audit training.

Other costs
In addition to the auditor's fees and expenses, the funding may cover a calculated sum of up to 20% of other costs. Other costs consist of labor and travel expenses and material and supplies costs incurred by the audited company for the purpose of carrying out the audit. These costs do not need to be specified.

The following costs cannot be accepted as project costs
• Purchased services from associated companies