Green investment bank is first of its kind in the world. It is based at UK and it basically attracts private funds to invest in areas of environmental preservation and improvement. It started in 2012 and is owned by Department of Business, innovation and skills and is structured as public company. It has its head office in Edinburgh.
This bank is a result of great concern regarding the degradation of environment and climate change. It directly tackles the issue of ever increasing demand on the natural resources, environment pollution and effects on the global climate.
Business model
UK has chartered out some set targets for itself to save the environment which includes an investment of about £330bn in the environment conservation related projects by 2020. Money is invested as per market trends and is not granted as donations. Three major avenues of investment identified by the bank are energy efficiency, waste and bioenergy and offshore wind.
- Energy efficiency: Till date, the bank has supported 12 projects in this field. They have a unique product under which loan is granted to switch to low energy streetlights and other gadgets. These projects can range from single technology like street lighting to multiple technologies such as large industrial retrofit including building retrofit, onsite generation and industrial process.
- Offshore wind: The bank has invested about £620m in the UK’s offshore wind sector by financing 5 projects in total. The bank usually invest directly in offshore wind projects – whether in construction phase or operational. This move will give a boost to alternate source of renewable energy.
- Bioenergy and Waste: UK has a well-developed process of waste management efficiently and productively, both household and industrial. The bank has made investment in 13 new waste management centres. These are both small scale to large scale waste plants which generate a renewable energy through bio gas plants or other technology and also cleaning the environment.
- Other upcoming sectors: the bank is also considering the areas like carbon capture and storage, developing marine energy and developing some new bio fuels for the transportation purpose to save petrol. No investments have been made in this sector, yet.
