Earlier this week I sent you a note about our "LEEP" project to develop capital markets financing solutions for residential eco-refurbishment (energy efficiency + micro-renewables). It's a UK project at the moment, with plans to extend our work to other countries. Key features of the model are:
- Local Authorities facilitating and supervising local loan funds and service delivery for households.
- A mix of policy and service delivery solutions that will address barriers to eco-refurbishment being taken up by householders.
- Re-financing loan funds by issuing climate bonds designed to meet the needs of institutional investors.
We've had some good news today for Phase 2 of that project: Eversheds, one of the UK's largest law firms, has agreed to provide pro-bono legal advice to the project. That will be invaluable when it comes to exploring contractual options for Local Authorities managing schemes and regulatory changes that might be required.
Eversheds partner Michelle Davies said:
"The UK's Climate Change Committee has told us all how vital it is in addressing climate change that we improve energy efficiency across the whole country; that simply can't be done unless we can engineer finance from capital markets. We're delighted to have the opportunity to support the Climate Bonds Initiative and the LEEP project in their efforts to design policy and schemes that address this issue."
Good news for the LEEP consortium (Climate Bonds Initiative, UK Energy Saving Trust, Ecofin Research Foundation and Marksman Consulting) and, hopefully, good news for emissions reduction in the future.
