Record renewable lender RBS to expand efficiency program
The announcement comes as the bank also revealed that it lent more than £1bn to support UK customers’ sustainable energy projects last year, more than doubling its figure from 2014 and confirming it as the largest lender to the UK renewable energy sector.
RBS has stated its intention to support many firms, “from SMEs to large corporates,” in order to improve their efficiency, while also bringing more companies into its ‘Innovation Gateway’, which enables companies with new technologies to roll them out across RBS branches to test their efficiency, with UK businesses Sainsbury’s, Carillion and BaxterStorey having already become involved.
Boosts in spending on both solar and biomass projects have been cited by RBS as major factors in the funding increase, with lending to solar more than trebling to over £450m compared to 2014, while the bank has also arranged financing for £550m worth of solar projects since its inception in 2010.
The increase in biomass support, which rose from less than £50m in 2014 to more than £150m last year, has been driven by RBS’s specialist asset finance lender Lombard, with the firm’s focus on renewable energy projects leading to a change in policy last year, which enabled the lender to use the asset and resulting revenue as security against lending for these projects as an alternative to cash or land, granting greater cash efficiency to customers.
Alison Rose, CEO of Commercial and Private Banking at RBS, believes the bank’s record lending is a huge achievement, demonstrating its unwavering commitment to the low carbon economy and the jobs, businesses and communities that rely on it.
“It also highlights British businesses’ appetite for investing in renewable energy projects. With almost 25 years of experience in the sector and over 300 trained renewable energy banking specialists across the UK, RBS remains committed to providing both finance and support to the sector,” she said.
RBS recently funded Lightsource Renewable Energy's floating solar project on Thames Water's Queen Elizabeth II Reservoir, the largest project of its kind in Europe, while the company has committed to reduce its energy by 15 per cent over the coming four years, adding to the 15 per cent reduction the bank achieved between 2012 and 2015.
