Michigan awards nearly $1.9 million for industrial decarbonization studies, launches Industrial Clean Innovation Partnership

Grants announced for MI Healthy Climate Challenge #4: Go Big, Go Clean

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) today announced a major step forward in clean manufacturing, unveiling nearly $1.9 million in grant awards through the MI Healthy Climate Challenge #4: Go Big, Go Clean, alongside the launch of a new statewide public-private Michigan Industrial Clean Innovation Partnership (MI ICIP). 

Together, these initiatives establish a connected approach to industrial decarbonization across Michigan, bridging high-level policy strategy, site-specific feasibility studies, and long-term peer collaboration to help industrial facilities succeed while reducing emissions, lowering energy costs, and protecting local air quality.  

“Michigan built the modern manufacturing economy, and we intend to lead the next one,” said EGLE Director Phil Roos. “Go Big, Go Clean helps our manufacturers find real, facility-specific ways to cut emissions and energy costs while staying competitive, and the new partnership makes sure no company has to solve these challenges alone. When our factories run cleaner, the air gets cleaner in the communities around them, and we move closer to the goals in the MI Healthy Climate Plan.” 

“Michigan is writing the playbook for the future of manufacturing,” said Governor Gretchen Whitmer. “We are not just reducing emissions, we are aggressively modernizing our industrial base to build a stronger, more resilient economy. By investing directly in these facility-level solutions, we are securing jobs, protecting the health of our communities, and proving that climate leadership is economic leadership.” 

MI Healthy Climate Challenge #4: Go Big, Go Clean

EGLE awarded $1,882,750 to five organizations through the Challenge. The awardees will study a range of decarbonization pathways, from electrifying industrial process heat to modernizing building and utility systems, and will assess how those changes affect emissions, energy costs, workforce needs, and surrounding communities. The awardees and their participating facilities: 

• Bell’s Brewery: $350,000 to evaluate deep decarbonization pathways at Bell's primary production facility in Comstock, with Wilson Engineering Services and the Kalamazoo Climate Crisis Coalition.  
• Detroit Zoological Society, Royal Oak: $260,000 toward a $320,000 project to design a net-zero energy and decarbonization strategy for the Detroit Zoo campus, with SmithGroup, Agathon Solar, and MSU's Industrial Training and Assessment Center.  
• Ford Motor Company: $577,655 to evaluate decarbonization pathways at the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, partnering with Newlab.  
• Michigan Green Building Collaborative, Grand Rapids: $418,282 to lead decarbonization studies across two multifacility manufacturing cohorts focused on automotive metals facilities and lower-temperature assembly operations across plastics, tooling, and furniture manufacturing, with Foresight Management and MSU's Industrial Training and Assessment Center, for companies including RSDC (Holt), Autokiniton (Elkton), Shape Corp (Grand Haven), Petoskey Plastics (Petoskey), Kuka Systems (Shelby), and MillerKnoll (Spring Lake).  
• Michigan Technological University, Houghton: $276,813 to assess low-carbon cement production in partnership with Amrize’s cement plant in Monroe County.  

“Decarbonizing a major manufacturing facility takes rigorous, site-specific engineering,” said Mary Wroten, Executive Director, Sustainability, Ford Motor Company. “Ford’s study with Newlab will help us identify new opportunities for meaningful carbon reductions, ensuring we continue to make smart investments that strengthen our operations and benefit the communities where we live and work. Michigan’s willingness to invest alongside industry demonstrates the collaborative leadership needed to position our state at the forefront of sustainable, modern manufacturing.” 

Launch of the Michigan Industrial Clean Innovation Partnership

The launch of MI ICIP gives Michigan manufacturers a shared space to exchange practical solutions, surface common barriers, and advance projects that keep the state competitive while reducing industrial emissions and their impact on local air quality.  

"Clean industry and economic growth reinforce each other, and modernizing Michigan's industrial base is exactly how we keep it competitive and win new investment," said Quentin Messer, CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. “Grateful that Team Michigan has ‘Gone Big by Going Clean’ in ways that benefit Michiganders economically on both peninsulas.” 

Convened by the Minnesota-based Great Plains Institute (GPI), MI ICIP functions as a peer-led coalition bringing together state agencies, nonprofits, technical experts, and industrial facilities to share best practices, overcome technical hurdles, and move feasibility studies toward full implementation. 

EGLE joins as a coalition member alongside the Go Big, Go Clean grant recipients and a founding group of industrial and technical partners that also includes: Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy; 5 Lakes Energy; American Council on an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE); Atlas602; Ford Motor Company; Fresh Coast Climate Solutions; Great Plains Institute; Industrious Labs; MI Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity; MI Green Building Collaborative; Michigan State University Industrial Technical Assistance Center; RMI; Suppliers Partnership for the Environment; University of Illinois Chicago Energy Resource Center; Wayne County. 

"Manufacturers across Michigan are facing many of the same questions about how to decarbonize competitively, and we know that one of the keys to scaling implementation is organizations benefiting from shared learning and collaborative problem solving," said Louise Miltich, interim CEO and executive vice president for the Great Plains Institute. "The Michigan Industrial Clean Innovation Partnership brings companies together with the technical and public partners who can help them move from feasibility to action. Pairing that collaboration with the Go Big, Go Clean studies gives Michigan a practical head start on industrial decarbonization." 

Together, these efforts build on a growing portfolio of industrial decarbonization work at EGLE’s Office of Climate and Energy, including the statewide industrial decarbonization roadmap being developed by 5 Lakes Energy, the Decarbonizing Michigan Industry webinar series, and the Industrial Decarbonization Working Group under the Council on Climate Solutions. 

The roadmap provides a statewide framework for Michigan's broader decarbonization initiatives. While the Challenge #4 grant projects target emission reductions at individual facilities, the roadmap examines the industrial sector as a whole. By assessing Michigan's major industrial emissions sources alongside the technology, infrastructure, and policy pathways needed to reduce them, it establishes a shared vision for decarbonizing the state’s industrial base. 

"The roadmap is meant to give Michigan a clear, statewide picture of what industrial decarbonization will actually take, from the technologies that are ready today to the infrastructure and policy changes needed to unlock deeper reductions over time," said 5 Lakes Energy Lead Consultant Elizabeth Boatman. "It helps identify where state policy, resources, and investment can do the most to move Michigan’s manufacturers toward a competitive, climate-aligned future." 

“As we modernize Michigan's industrial base, we are also securing the future of our workforce,” said Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity Director Susan Corbin. “These initiatives help us understand the exact workforce needs of tomorrow, ensuring that the transition to clean manufacturing creates, protects, and upskills high-paying jobs for Michiganders.” 

Taken together, these efforts give Michigan a connected approach to industrial decarbonization:  

• Statewide analysis that sets direction.  
• Facility-level studies that pinpoint where specific technical support and resources are needed on the ground.  
• A partnership that moves those lessons into practice and helps carry feasibility studies toward implementation.  
• Public and philanthropic investment that extends the work to more manufacturers.   

The goal is consistent, each piece working toward a more competitive Michigan industrial sector, cleaner air in the communities where these facilities operate, and steady progress on the MI Healthy Climate Plan. 

To stay informed about EGLE climate and energy initiatives, sign up for the MI Healthy Climate Bulletin.