There is currently no sensible financial arrangement for funding the transformation of social homes to net zero. And no-one seems to be talking about long-term plans either. After chats with a few FD’s, investors, and the Green Finance Institute, we thought it might be the right time to have a roundtable for funding net zero.
This is a request for interested parties to join the roundtable.
The purposes of the roundtable are to:
- Discuss long-term funding for conversion of social homes to net-zero
- Produce a document for communication with HM Treasury.
A full explanation is available here, but in brief an initial suggestion for a finance arrangement is:
- Landlord raises money via ESG funding
- Landlord retrofits homes to net zero
- For every home that is net zero, the landlord receives an annual payment from government which is used to repay the initial investment.
The UK Infrastructure Bank has described this arrangement as “financeable” and hence this call to key people in the sector.
If this is of interest, please reply to [email protected] and confirm you are happy to be on a doodle poll to arrange the meeting. Please also say if you represent a bank of a housing association.
Proposed details:
Venue: In-person, most likely London, TBA
Organiser: Richard Lupo MD, SHIFT Environment
Attendees: Ideally finance directors from housing associations x 4, investors x 4 and Emma Harvey-Smith from the Green Investment Institute who has the ear of HM Treasury
Duration: ~ 2 hrs maximum
Suggested agenda:
- Brief introductions
- An introductory statement about anti-competition laws (as different investors will be present, we will observe anti-competition rules and a statement will be circulated to that effect)
- Short presentation of the funding mechanism – attendees can take it apart or strengthen it as needed
- Discussion of this or any other potential ideas
- Assess appetite to document a net zero funding idea in a form to present to treasury
- If there is appetite, then organise document writing and identify the optimal routes into HMG
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash