Donal O’Riain has been struck by the welcome his company received in the US — and it isn’t just the Christmas card sent by the Department of Energy official who is helping it secure federally supported loans.

The prospect of abundant government funding thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act is prompting Ecocem, an Irish low-carbon cement producer, to double a planned $120mn investment in California as it reorients spending towards the US instead of Europe, he says.

“They are rolling out the carpet for green investment — we were surprised at how personal the contact was,” says O’Riain, Ecocem’s founder and managing director. The “net effect” is that Ecocem, which qualifies for IRA funding on the basis that its cement is produced with carbon emissions that are 40 times lower than average, will “favour further investment in the States [rather] than in the EU”.