Victorian Circular Economy Recycling Modernisation Fund: Information bulletin

Visual summary

This video shows a Powerpoint presentation conveying information about the Victorian Circular Economy Recycling Modernisation Fund. This presentation is accompanied by a video of the person speaking.

The 3 key speakers are:

• John Polhill, Manager - Infrastructure Partnerships, Sustainability Victoria
• Julia Mahoney, Program Support Officer – Infrastructure Partnerships, Sustainability Victoria
• Karen Cosson, Acting Team Lead – Infrastructure Partnerships, Sustainability Victoria
  
  

John Polhill: Good morning everybody, and thank you for coming along today and joining our information session for the recently announced Circular Economy Recycling Modernisation Fund delivered by Victorian government in partnership with the Australian government. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners on the lands on which we're meeting today. I'm presenting from the lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung people in Woodend, Macedon Ranges, and I pay my respect to the elders past, present, and emerging. My name is John. For those who don't know me, I'm the manager of the Infrastructure Partnerships branch here at Sustainability Victoria, and I'll be taking you through the content for today's session, along with my colleague Julia. Also from the team is Karen, Sarah and Sandra, who will be helping with today's session, along with members of the grants team as well to answer questions at the end. I'd like to advise everybody at this point that we are recording this session and it will be publicly available on SV's website in a week or so, and an email notification will be sent out to those who have registered when it becomes available.

The purpose of today's session is to give you an overview of the fund opportunities. There'll be time at the end of the presentation to ask questions, but you don't need to wait right until the end, you'll see on the top right hand, corner of the screen there, you'll have ability to post questions in the Q&A. So, feel free to start posting questions as we go, and Karen and Sarah will facilitate these at the end of the presentation. We do only have an hour, so we will be prioritising questions and there's a function in there to like questions. So if you see something that you want to hear, or it's just something similar that you will be asking, give it a thumbs up and we will address those ones first, prioritised questions first. If we don't get to all of the questions today, we will compile a full Q&A and make that available along with the recording.

00:02:08

The Circular Economy Recycling Modernisation Fund. It's a bit of a mouthful, so from here on in, I'll just refer to it as the Fund. This is being co-funded by both Australian and Victorian government who have currently invested jointly over $88 million. This is part of the national strategy to change the way Australia looks at waste and grow our economy, protect the environment, and reach a national resource recovery target of 80% by 2030. The aim of the fund is to generate 600 million of investment from industry. That's industry leverage, we'll talk a bit about that later on and drive a $1 billion transformation of Australia's waste and resource recycling capacity. The aim is to create over 10,000 jobs and divert 10 million tonnes of waste from landfill and in the process making useful products as Australia turbocharges its recycling capacity. The fund will also support innovative investment in new and existing infrastructure to sort process remanufacturing materials, such as mixed plastics, paper and cardboard, tyres and glass.

00:03:25

Next slide, please. The Recycling Victoria, A New Economy policy is our Victoria's $380 million, 10 year action plan, which will fundamentally transform our recycling sector, reduce waste, create thousands of jobs and set up Victoria for a more sustainable future. This circular economy will drive investment in jobs and increase the processing capacity of waste in the recycling industry. The reforms are delivered alongside investment and innovation as a comprehensive package to provide reliable services with a strong industry for future and play a huge part in everything that we do on a day-to-day basis, both from industry and government in this sector and make these services meet and exceed, in many cases, the community expectations.

00:04:17

So, as you're probably aware by now, there are a number of reforms within the policy. There are nine overall, including the kerbside reform, which sets out to change the way Victoria recycles materials at the source, at households, at businesses, and increase the quality of materials that are being recovered for new products, especially when we're looking at remanufacturing and reprocessing to drive a stronger recycling industry.

Behaviour change is also a huge part of the way we view the waste and resource recovery sector and the systems within it, which help reduce waste by reusing, sharing, repairing, and recycling products, and having households and communities understand just how our waste and recycling systems work. The Victorian government's contribution to this fund has been established under the Recycling Victoria policy, and this particular fund is to respond to goal three of the circular economy goals, which is quite simply to recycle more resources. The fund's intention is to stimulate investment in priority infrastructure to support increased recycling across the state, to ensure that we have viable local capacity and capability and to produce quality materials that can be used as inputs in new manufacturing of products and infrastructure.

00:05:41

So the overview of the fund, this is getting down to the nuts and bolts now. The fund aims to support recycling infrastructure that will build the capacity and capability and the resilience of Victoria's resource recovery sector. It will prepare businesses for the implementation of the national waste export ban and increase quality of materials for remanufacturing and create jobs within the circular economy. The fund will provide investment for reprocessing, remanufacturing, and end market capacity projects for materials impacted by the national waste export ban and specific priority materials in Victoria. For this round of the fund, the priority materials are paper and cardboard, single resin or mixed plastics and tyres. Projects may include upgrade materials, reprocessing facilities, new equipment to increase domestic processing capacity of recyclable materials and projects that increase the use of recycled materials, recycled content in manufacturing or infrastructure.

00:06:55

There's $2 million available in this round of the fund for Australian businesses, local government, and NGOs. Applicants are required to meet the following minimum cash co-contribution. Industry and business must contribute at least $3 for every $1 funded and local government must contribute at least $2 for every $1 funded, and we mentioned investment leverage earlier, and this is where investment leverage will be a key consideration as part of the application process. Higher investment from industry of those applying is looked upon favorably as we try and gain as much industry investment as possible with this fund. SV will accept applications requesting funding from between 50 and $500,000. Funding from other government sources, federal state, or local cannot be included as your portion of the co-contribution.

00:08:00

Again, in this section we'll just talk a little bit about the eligibility criteria and starting with who will be funded. Eligible applicants must have a Australian business number, an ABN, and have been operating for a minimum of 12 months by the application closing date. Important to note there, the application closing date must be operating for a minimum of 12 months. It must be a business or local government authority that has existing, reprocessing, and/or manufacturing facilities located in Victoria. So, these are not greenfield sites, these are existing, reprocessing, and/or manufacturing facilities. They must meet or exceed the minimum co-contribution requirements, that's that $3 to $1 for business, and $2 to $1 for local government. You must also agree to comply with the terms of participation in grant programs, and also agree to comply with the terms and conditions of the general grant funding agreements.

00:09:10

Applicants and project participants must also demonstrate financial capability to undertake the project and that the project can be completed before 1 June 2024. Must not have failed to meet program timelines with other SV-funded programs without sufficient rationale provided to SV, which can be done during the application process. Must not have failed to address an environmental or safety breach in the last five years, or if there was a breach, that this has been satisfactorily addressed, again, within the application. Must not have an unresolved environmental or safety breach. Must not have a current industrial relations investigation or prosecution in the last five years. So, now onto what is eligible for funding.

00:10:07

In order to be eligible, projects must be located in Victoria. That's a requirement of the fund, to be located in Victoria. It must source more than 50% of the materials from within Victoria. Must meet the eligibility criteria and one or more of the fund's objectives, and these are listed in guidelines. Meet all regulatory and planning requirements. Demonstrate a need for Victorian government support, genuine support for these projects to commence, and to be commissioned and operational by 1 June 2024. Projects should maximise public value and leverage the co-investment, as we talked about earlier, and requesting funding must be directly related to the project.

00:11:00

So, what won't be funded. Projects will be ineligible if they've already commenced construction before signing the funding agreement. It's worth noting that you can order equipment prior, but this is done at the applicant's own risk, but not have commenced construction. They are ineligible if undertaken solely to comply with regulation or a regulatory notice or a court order. It won't be eligible if they focus on materials other than those previously listed, paper and cardboard, mixed or single resin plastics, and tyres. Ineligible projects also include waste to energy projects such as bio energy gasification, and they're also ineligible if they seek to extend capacity for accepting or sorting mixed waste, so transfer stations, MRFs, et cetera.

00:12:10

So, these are all listed in the guidelines of what won't be funded, but we'll run through them to ensure that we give them some recognition. So, there are a number of things that won't be funded, that are not eligible for funding in this round, in-kind contributions, request for assistance in managing cash flow, lease or purchase of land, permit, licensing or approval costs, routine maintenance work, and that's planned maintenance and reactive maintenance, security such as fences, cameras, alarm systems, repair of facilities damaged by vandalism, fire, or other natural disasters, which should be covered by insurance, operating costs, salary costs, electricity, water, and other utilities, consultancy or project management costs, marketing, advertising, or promotional costs, the purchase of vehicles, front loaders, forklifts, et cetera, business case development, feasibility studies, consultancy, or contract work, reconstruction like site preparation, clearing of sites, earthworks, or site accessibility works, costs of equipment not dedicated to the project, for example, office buildings and building fit outs, research development, and demonstration, leasing of equipment, travel conferences, training, and any other educational activities, contingency costs and fuel costs. Government funding cannot be applied to any of the above. Now, I'll hand over to Julia to go through the assessment criteria and how to apply.

00:14:00

Julia Mahoney: Thanks, John. Hi, everyone. My name's Julia Mahoney. I'm one of the program support officers in the team delivering this funding. So, I'm going to provide an overview of the assessment criteria, which the assessment panel will use to score your application. You can read the detail of this criteria in the guidelines on our website. The application form is also structured in a way that makes it clear which criteria each question falls under. Different weightings apply to the various assessment criteria. In response to your applications across all of the criteria, it's really important that you support your statements with evidence, so your project may be technologically and financially viable, have fantastic potential outcomes, and a great team to deliver it, but without supporting evidence, there's no way for SV to assess the validity of your statements, and it makes it really hard for the assessors to give a high score.

So, I'll provide some examples of what we are looking for as we go through the criteria. It's also important to note that after you've submitted your application, we can't come back to you and ask for additional information. We can only ask you for clarification on information that you have provided that isn't clear. So, make sure to include as much information as possible in your original application.

00:15:20

So, the first criteria I'll go through is what. The weighting for this criteria is 40%. Under this criteria, you'll be asked to demonstrate that your project meets one or more of the fund objectives. The objectives are listed in both the guidelines and the application form. You'll also be asked to demonstrate that the project is viable and investment ready. In terms of supporting your statements with evidence, say if your project is going to install equipment that's going to clean a certain grade of material that will increase the quality of high grade materials for manufacturing, this would meet the funding objective to increase the use and market demand of quality recovered materials in remanufacturing, and to make new products.

00:16:10

The sort of evidence we are looking for to demonstrate that the project is a viable solution to achieve this objective would include technology specifications on how much the equipment will clean the materials, evidence of manufacturing uses for your proposed product, any market research available, and demonstration of end markets through quotes, commercial agreements, or letters of support from potential customers. We'd also be looking for evidence of where and how you'll obtain the feedstock or the input materials required for the project, such as existing supply agreements or letters of support from transfer stations or your local council for example. Under this criteria, you'll also be asked to demonstrate that the objectives of the project align with the strategic priorities of your organisation. So, it's important that the project makes sense to the strategic goals of your organisation, and we're wanting you to demonstrate how it aligns with your organisation's vision for the future, or perhaps how it will support strategic goals such as the growth or stability of your existing operations. You'll also be asked to demonstrate the impact your project will have on capacity requirements resulting from the impacts of the waste export ban.

00:17:38

You might consider the quantity and quality of materials that will need to be processed onshore as a result of the ban or the possible pathways for materials once they can no longer be exported. Things to consider when you're thinking about the impact your project will have is whether your project is of a scale to achieve a significant outcome for the relevant materials, how much of the relevant material is currently being exported, and what proportion of current volumes will your project address? Will your project directly reduce exports of the relevant materials or does your project support a new end market or address a difficult to recover material or a gap in the market?

00:18:24

Rather than giving you a narrow definition of the impacts, we want you as the experts in the market to tell us what it's going to achieve a significant outcome. To support your answer to that question, we recommend that you look at the COAG export ban information that's available online and use data that's freely available, such as current export volumes to support your statements. Potential data sources include your own business data, industry reports, reports available on the SV website, such as annual waste data reports, and the recovered resources market bulletin, as well as data and reports that are available on the Australian government's Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water website and export data can also be obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

00:19:21

Something else to keep in mind as you fill out your application, is how your project will help Victoria shift away from the buy, use, dispose culture of a linear economy to an avoid, minimise, reduce, and reuse culture known as the circular economy. Under the who criteria, the assessment panel will be looking for applications that demonstrate the participants' capability and capacity to successfully deliver the project. This criteria is worth 20%.

00:20:02

If for example, your organisation or project partners have experience delivering a similar infrastructure project, we're looking for details on what these projects were, any challenges or setbacks in delivery you encountered and how these were overcome, as well as the project outcomes achieved. More generally, we also want to know what project management and governance processes you have in place. Under the how criteria, applicants will be assessed on how well they have demonstrated viability to successfully deliver the project, including financial viability. The weighting for how is 30%. The kinds of supporting evidence we are looking for here is proof of site ownership or a lease agreement, council planning approvals, or relevant EPA permissions, and a detailed risk management plan. We'll also be asking for a detailed timeline of the project to ensure that it can be delivered within the required timeframes and an overview of the project expenditure and how you intend to finance the required co-contribution.

00:21:15

Under the why criteria, which is weighted at 10%, projects will be assessed on why the project is needed, why government financial assistance is needed, the benefits that the project will provide, and how it aligns for the priorities of governments. Again, any statement should be supported with evidence where possible. In terms of demonstrating the need for a government financial assistance, we recognise that there is a bit of a conflict here in terms of projects needing to be viable and also demonstrating a need for funding.

The key here is to explain the potential outcomes with and without government support, for example, the impacts on capacity or delivery timing if financial assistance isn't provided. In addition to being scored on the assessment criteria I've just gone through, the assessment panel may overlay diversity considerations, such as geographical spread, a spread across industry, and types of applicants, as well as types of projects, and the materials addressed to achieve a diverse mix of projects. Successful applicants from round one and two of this fund can apply for this next round of funding. However, it must be for a different project. Previous funding allocations will also be considered as part of the diversity assessment of round three applications.

00:22:57

An important part of the assessment process is for SV to complete due diligence on applications, similar to if you were applying for a bank loan or seeking private sector investment in your project. During these checks, SV looks at any compliance issues, the financial viability of the applicant and any project partners, adequate insurances, any conflicts of interest and any delivery history with SV. SV may use a contracted third party to undertake financial viability checks, but we will notify you prior to any external parties contacting you and any information that you provide to satisfy these checks will be considered commercial in confidence. The results of these due diligence checks then form a part of a risk-based assessment of your project.

00:23:53

I'll now go through some of the steps that you can follow to submit your application for funding. So, the first step is to ensure that your project meets the eligibility and assessment criteria. The second step would be to read and understand the guidelines as well as the terms of participation in grant programs and the funding agreement. The links to those documents can all be found in the guidelines. Following that, we'd suggest that you register or log into SmartyGrants, which is the app that you will submit your application through to start your application. The link to the platform can be found in the fund guidelines.

00:24:40

The first part of the application form in SmartyGrants is an eligibility check. We recommend completing this early to make sure that your project is eligible. If you don't pass this check, or you have queries about your eligibility, get in touch with SV's grants team via the grants enquiries email or phone number, and we'll share these details in the chat. Following the eligibility check, we recommend that you review the questions in the application form. Once you've completed the check, you should be able to navigate throughout the form to see all of the questions. You'll also be able to download a preview of the application form, so that you can see all of the questions that will be asked and start preparing your responses. Just to note that some of the fields in the preview of the application form are conditional, so you may not need to answer every question that you see if you download a preview, but once you start completing your form, you'll know which questions are relevant to your project. Then, you'll need to plan research and gather information for your application as early as possible, to give your application the best chance of success. Because of the potential scale of these grants, the application form is fairly in depth, and it will take some time to complete.

00:26:13

We recommend that you start the bulk of your application no later than two to three weeks before the closing date. The SmartyGrants system means that you can save and go back to your application form at any time. You'll then need to complete all of the required questions in the application form and upload any supporting documents. Then, ensure you complete and submit your application via SmartyGrants by 11:59 PM on Tuesday the 27th of September. Once you've submitted your form, you should receive an electronic reply from SmartyGrants acknowledging the receipt of your application.

00:26:57

Occasionally, the emails from SmartyGrants can end up in spam folders, so please check your spam emails before contacting SV for assistance if you don't receive an automatic reply. It's important to note that late applications will not be accepted except under exceptional circumstances, and those circumstances are outlined in the terms of participation in a grant program. If your computer or internet connection is prone to meltdowns, we suggest submitting your application early. Again, if you need support with any of these steps, you can contact our excellent grant enquiries team.

00:27:43

I'll now go through just a few key tips to improve your chance of success. So, apologies for restating the obvious, but it's really important that you take time to read the guidelines. In the past, it's been clear that not everyone has read them thoroughly, but it's really critical that you read them and understand the objectives of the fund and the eligibility requirements. Our second tip is to start your application early, so that you have time required to gather the evidence that you need. We also recommend that applicants engage with investment support services before submitting their application to ensure that the project is investment ready and set up for success.

00:28:37

SV's grants enquiries team are available to provide support and respond to queries about eligibility and how to apply for the grant, but they can't review drafts or provide any feedback on your application. However, Sustainability Victoria has a free investment facilitation service for projects that build Victoria's resource recovery sector. So, this service can tell you what you need to have in place for your project and provide connections within the industry to make sure it's investment ready. More information on this service is available on SV's website. Also, it is important to note that the investment facilitation service cannot tell you if your project is eligible or if it will be funded.

00:29:28

Final tip is, wherever possible, to provide evidence to support the statements that you’re making in your application, and to clearly explain what your project will achieve and why it is important for Victoria. Don't assume that the assessors will have prior knowledge about your organisation or the type of project you're proposing or in-depth industry expertise. I'll now hand back to John to go through some more tips for ensuring your project is investment ready, and the grant timelines before we take some questions.

00:30:07

John: Thanks, Julia. Just a couple of things to consider, to keep in mind when you are putting the application in, and some of the things that the assessment panel consider, whether your project is investment ready. So, if you can answer yes to all or most of these questions, your application will have a really good chance of success. If the answer to any of these questions is no, it doesn't mean your project won't be funded, but you will need to address and consider how you can develop these project elements and how best to address them in the application, including in the risk management plan. So, some of the things to consider is, has your project plan or business case been internally approved? Has it gone through the rigor of your own organisation and sensee checked? Have you secured feedstock? Is the plant increasing capacity for feedstock and have you already opened those pipelines to increase feedstock volume?

00:31:10

Do you have a site identified or secured? Do you have secure end markets for your product or the materials? Have you already started these conversations or indeed entered into agreements with offtake partners? Have you commenced seeking planning and environmental permits? Have you spoken to your local council or EPA regarding this project? Do you have commitment in writing for project partners or investors? Have these conversations started and do you have letters to secure funding project partners? Have you identified the required technology for your project? More often, we see projects using technology coming from overseas and have these lead times been factored in to ensure that the project can be completed, commissioned, and operational by 1st of June 2024? Do you have all the required cash co-contribution? Is it secured? And, do you have a detailed risk management plan with your mitigating strategies?

00:32:20

So for example, around feedstock, this is a question that comes up a fair amount, and it's a bit of a chicken and an egg question, but if you have not yet secured feedstock and you're writing the application, you should provide some detail on the availability of the feedstock in the market and the amount required by the plant to ensure financial stability of your operations. Really, it's that input process, output model that needs to be further explained. And, how do you plan to secure feedstock if you haven't done so already and any potential suppliers you may have approached and in negotiations or discussions with, and what are the key dependencies in securing long term feedstock?

00:33:12

So timelines, the fund, as you are well aware, is now open. These dates, just to highlight, they are subject to change. We are moving towards the election, so we would provide all applicants with a notification if any of these dates were to change and would do that as soon as possible. The applications, as it stands now, close at 11:59 PM on Tuesday the 27th of September, and we acknowledge that this is a relatively challenging timeframe in which to complete the applications. As Julia mentioned, you'd start early and it gives you a better chance to overcome any hurdles as you go through the application process and please utilise our grants team and our investment facilitation team as well should you have any questions.

00:34:10

Notifications of outcome is part of the approvals process, but rest assured SV will advise on outcomes as soon as we possibly can once all the applications have been assessed. Once projects are approved, we'll begin establishing funding agreements and comes with that pre-funding conditions and negotiating contracts, and let you get started on your project as soon as possible, so you can meet that deadline for a completion and operational by the 1st of June 2024.

00:34:50

I mentioned the election, we are coming up to the caretaker period as the state election will be held on Saturday the 26th of October, the Victorian government will enter a caretaker role from 6:00 PM on the 1st of November 2022, and this means no significant government decisions can be major in this time, and it may result in delays assessing your grant application, but as I mentioned, you will be informed. As soon as we know, we will let you know of any changes to the timelines or assessment process.

00:35:32

So before we wrap up and get onto the Q and A, let's see, we've got 12 questions have been asked, there's a couple of the commonly asked questions. Can I submit more than one application? Yes, as long as it's for a completely separate project, a single business or local government can submit more than one application if they have multiple projects and that meet the eligibility criteria and the individual projects can demonstrate how it addresses the assessment criteria and the objectives of the fund. So yes, you can submit more than one application, but it must address all the objectives of the fund and be eligible. I have a smaller scale project, should I still apply? Absolutely, yes. This funding round is open to investment of $50,000 to $500,000 and it really does seek to maximise public value and return on investment in the industry. So, we are looking at that industry leverage. Co-contributions are not intended to discourage applications and SV encourages projects of varying investment size, between $50,000 and $500,000 for this round.

00:36:48

Are waste to energy projects eligible? No, not in this round, not eligible as includes incineration, pyrolysis, gasification, refuse-derived fuels, and anaerobic digestion. Can SV review a draft of my grant application? No, the grant program is a competitive process, so the grants team are unable to review a draft or provide feedback on the application itself. However, as we mentioned, SV's investment facilitation team and grant team can provide details and answer some questions that you may have as you go through the application process. The investment facilitation team can also help and discuss your project and the concept and the business case to make sure you are investment ready, and the investment facilitation service are completely separate from the assessment of the application. So, that brings us to the end of the formal presentation, and now I'd like to hand over for Q and A.

00:38:14

Karen Cosson: Thanks, John and Julia, for your presentations, going through all the guidelines. We have popped the link to the guidelines in the chat, but I hope you're all very familiar with them, and we've also been publishing the questions, so we'll just go through them now. So, we've got going back to the top... We had a few questions about what was eligible with glass and also clothing and textiles, so they're not eligible, and what is eligible is paper and cardboard, tyres, and plastics. So, that's in section 2.3 of the fund, the materials that will be funded. So, that answers that question, and it is true that the national waste export ban does include other materials, but in this round three, we're only focusing on paper, cardboard, plastics, and tyres. And, then there was a question about the completion date for 1st of June 2024, and there's also a question related to that, that if there's delays in notification or the projects are successful, does that date change? So John, would you like to answer that one?

00:39:48

John: Yes, certainly. No, the date is fixed, that 1st of June 2024 is fixed and it's primarily to align the Australian government requirement for projects completed under their portion of the funding. Should that date change, then all applicants and successful applicants will be notified of that change and contracts would vary to accommodate for the additional time, but as it stands now, the 1st of June 2024 is for all in contract projects to be completed and commissioned and operational by that date.

00:40:30

Karen: Great, thanks for clarifying that, John. There's a question about transfer stations, asking if they are ineligible, and Luke who's from our legal and governance team has answered that, inciting the guidelines state that projects that seek to extend capacity for receipt and/or sorting only of unsorted materials, for example, infrastructure for transfer stations or material recovery facilities are ineligible. So if that hasn't answered that question, I think it was Lee, you could ask a further question there.

00:41:15

There's a question here from Christopher, and Luke has responded in the chat, but he was asking about the three to one or the one to three contribution, and I hope that's answered your question, Christopher, the maximum funding available under this round is $500,000, and we can't provide advice on the likelihood of a potential application and a further thing, that if you are going to go and seek information or to have a discussion with SV's investment facilitation team, then Luke has just put a note in there. Can we ask for applicants to confirm your eligibility through grants.enquiries@sustainability.vic.gov.au just to make sure that you are eligible before you go to the investment facilitation team? So, that's a good idea. And John, did you see the question from Simon Clay about the question about transfer stations and referring to a dirty MRF, so where the trucks are coming in to go to landfill, would the project that aims to recover cardboard from C&I waste be eligible?

00:42:40

John: Yes, I saw that one. Hello, Simon. Yes, I believe so. We'd have to clarify that, but if it was actually separating and sorting of a single waste stream, that's eligible, which is in this case paper and cardboard, then I believe it would be, but general receipt of mixed waste streams, transfer stations and MRFs are not eligible, but if the project was for sorting, then I believe so.*

Karen: That might be one to just send into grants enquiries-

John: And just clarify that, yep.

00:43:20

Karen: So, that we can give you very specific information there, Simon.
Does a company need to be GST registered? And Luke has answered, "A company does not need to be registered for GST to apply, and you can find out about applicant eligibility under 2.1 in the fund guidelines." And, then I popped in the grant.enquiries information in there as well. And then Julia, you might like to answer this one from Juan Ortiz, could we please confirm, it's a very interesting question, if the interstate collaboration, specifically from New South Wales is acceptable in order to complete the application where head office and the production plant is based in Victoria, but the consultant company is from New South Wales?

00:44:13

Julia: Thanks for the question, Juan. So, it's about the lead applicant being eligible to apply. So, if the lead applicant is the company that's based in Victoria and has an existing facility in Victoria and has an ABN and it meets all of the other eligibility requirements, then that should be fine. If your consultant's based in New South Wales, that's not an issue. It's just about making sure that the project delivers the outcomes for Victoria that we are looking for. I hope that answers that question.

00:44:48

Karen: Great. Thanks, Julia, and I'd also like to thank Sandra for doing an excellent job of moving people around and doing all the slides, so that's great work there, Sandra. Well, that's the end of the questions. So, if anyone has a final question, please type it in now, otherwise we can wind up. And, just a reminder that if you are wanting to speak to the investment facilitation team here at SV, please just check your eligibility with grants through that grants.enquiries@sustainability.vic.gov.au and all enquiries need to go to them, not to any of the team, because if they came to the team, we just say this has to go to grants enquiries. That's for all the probity and everything, and a reminder that the recording and the questions, and also questions that come in get made into the information bulletin that's on the website, on the grants page for this. So, there's no more questions that have come in, and so we might wrap it up. So, thanks to everyone for attending and good luck with your applications and any enquiries to grants enquiries. Did you need to say anything else, John?

00:46:23

John: No, wonderful, just thanks for taking an hour out of your day and we look forward to receiving your applications.

Karen: Great. Thanks, everyone.

John: Thank you all.

Karen: I'll end the session now, bye.

End of transcript

*Clarification: As outlined in section 2.4 of the fund guidelines, projects that seek to extend capacity for receipt and/or sorting only of unsorted materials are not eligible for funding.