UK’s heart is in the right green place insists Green Investment Bank man

The UK’s heart is in the right place when it comes to saving energy and carbon emissions, insists the Managing Director of Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Investment at the Green Investment […]

The UK’s heart is in the right place when it comes to saving energy and carbon emissions, insists the Managing Director of Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Investment at the Green Investment Bank.

Recent grumbles about environmental levies and taxes have put going “green” under the spotlight.

Speaking after his appearance at Energy Live 2013 in the London Film Museum yesterday, he told ELN: “I think generally we’re on the right track. There’s a huge policy push to meet our 2020 objectives both in energy efficiency and carbon emissions.”

He added: “It’s not always easy, it can be very challenging particularly in the energy efficiency sphere but I think the heart is in the right place and we’re moving in the right direction.”

But with UK Plc getting to its feet again, he sounded a warning about keeping up the good work: “We have from a 1990 baseline reduced our emissions but as the economy starts to recover we need to do a little bit more.”

That means work from the green bank and others to get people thinking about using less, said Mr Paterson-Jones: “The message we want to bring in is that energy efficiency in commercial properties bears good investment returns.”

The projects he is responsible for lending too have a “green hurdle” to jump, he explained: “We are commercial, we have to make a profit in all our investments but we have a double bottom line which means one we have to be commercial and two they have to fit into our green parameters. So there’s a green hurdle for each investment. They have to reduce a certain amount of carbon emissions and in our particular area they have to reduce energy usage.”

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