£50 million to drive efficiency in public buildings

Salix Finance, the funding arm of the Carbon Trust, will offer £50 million in interest free loans to public sector bodies in England to catalyse investment in energy efficiency measures.

The programme is designed to “drive energy efficiency savings through the public sector,” explains Paul Chisnell, Head of the Salix Energy Efficiency Loans Scheme, “and to take advantage of technologies that are relatively low-hanging fruit” – such as improved insulation and low carbon lighting. The loans can be paid back through savings made on energy bills.

The Salix loan scheme is another piece in the increasingly detailed jigsaw of carbon financing aiming to transform homes and buildings into paragons of sustainability. Gemma Adams, Senior Sustainability Advisor at Forum for the Future, remarked that the success of Salix's interest-free loans would be one to watch. “There’s nothing quite like it. In taking a lot of the risk out, it makes it easy for organisations to make savings where these are clear.”

The £50 million is, for now, a one-off scheme. But with the loans likely to be snapped up by the end of the year, there's going to be a high demand for continuing financial innovation to set carbon-cutting measures in motion. – Nick Chan

29 December 2009

Nick Chan