Carbon Trust Awards Largest Interest-Free Energy Efficiency Loan for a Small Business

February 17th, 2010 by Zachary Shahan

Carbon Trust is a British non-profit aimed at accelerating Britain’s move to a low carbon economy. As one part of the broad work it does, Carbon Trust offers 0% interest loans to businesses for energy saving equipment.

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The organization just awarded its first £500,000 ($788,384) interest-free loan to a small business, the highest possible under its government-backed program. But, in total, it has given out a lot more (creating huge financial and energy savings) since the program started less than a year ago.

Blue Chip, an IT support company, got the loan in order to “install energy efficient evaporative cooling technology at its new five-acre datacentre site.”

This technology will reportedly cut its electricity use at the datacenter by 60% and save the company £100,000 ($157,678) a year.

The application process was straightforward, according to the managing director of Blue Chip, Brian Meredith, and the loan was processed and approved within two weeks!

Whether on mistake or planned, this major loan was awarded at the same time that the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) started a campaign to encourage more of its members to jump on this bandwagon and take advantage of the Carbon Trust 0% loan scheme.

Carbon Trust does much more than provide loans for such projects, though. One helpful service it provides is it conducts free energy efficiency assessments to help companies figure out where they could make the biggest savings. “We calculate how much a company will save from making the investment in new equipment, so they can make an informed investment choice based on realistic, projected savings,” Carbon Trust chief executive Tom Delay says.

Carbon Trust is making a quick and powerful dent in carbon emissions and energy bills in Britain. It reports that “more than 1,000 firms have borrowed £46m [$72.53 million] since the scheme was launched last April, delivering annual cost and carbon savings of £17.2m [$27.1 million] and 100,000 tonnes respectively. It said that companies taking out loans typically cut energy bills by between £14,000 [$22,000] and £130,000 [$205,000] a year.”

If I were a business owner, especially in an energy intensive field, I think I would be drooling over the great opportunities Carbon Trust is offering. Nice to see this type of innovative organization making things happen.

Image Credit: Rogue Soul via flickr under a CC license

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Tags: BCC, Blue Chip, British, British Chambers of Commerce, carbon trust, energy saving, equipment, financial, it, loan, loans, low carbon economy, Tom Delay, UK

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.