The Environmental Audit Committee will publish its report on The Green Investment Bank on Friday.

The committee, which is chaired by Joan Walley and includes Zac Goldsmith and Caroline Lucas, heard evidence over three sessions into the pros and cons of the bank.

Among those giving evidence were Jonny Mulligan, chief executive of the Environmental Industries Commission, who said he wanted the GIB “to go where other finance won’t go at the moment”, and Ingrid Holmes of sustainability thinktank E3G, who told the committee that the bank was “the missing part of the architecture framework that will be needed to shift the UK to a low-carbon economy”.

The report couldn’t be more timely: today it was revealed that a deadline has been set to get the bank up and running by September 2012. And yesterday, Friends of the Earth’s head of economics, Simon Bullock, said that a “properly-funded Green Investment Bank” was key to the UK creating a low-carbon future.