The Green Bank is coming to town!
Posted: Thursday 8 March 2012
We were delighted to hear that Edinburgh will be the host for the UK’s new Green Investment Bank (GIB), the first bank in the world dedicated to investment in green technologies and the low carbon economy.
The current fund, as we understand it, has a pot of up to £3 billion of public money – with hopefully projected more injection from the private sector is to be used to assist and the UK government’s commitment to the development of the greener economy.
The focus is to be on offshore wind and energy production with industrial and commercial waste processing and recycling.
The UK Green Investments is the commercial team that will be starting the process and they are to be based in London and will be looking to commence investment from next month in projects which meet existing state aid exemptions.
The funds available are a sum of £100 million for waste infrastructure projects and a further £100 million for non-domestic energy efficiency.
Once the UK government has obtained state aid approval (which may take up to 18 months) then they will establish an independent corporate body under the Companies Acts with the third and final stage being the evolution of the Bank acquiring full borrowing powers.
This is obviously a very welcome decision for Edinburgh and its strong financial community.
If you would like to discuss this story further, please contact Susan Younger.
