Changes to the Carbon Trust Interest Free, loan scheme.

We are proud to announce that in the last financial year the Carbon Trust has
supported UK businesses through offering over £70m in interest free loans to replace
old equipment with more energy efficient versions. These loans should save a total
of 148,000 tonnes of CO2 each year. 

In our continuing effort to support UK businesses move to a low carbon economy, from
12 April 2010, the value range of the loan offered will change to £3,000 - £100,000
and the amount of CO2 that must be saved per £1,000 of loan value will increase from
1.5t CO2 to 2t CO2. 

We believe this is a positive change as it allows us to offer more loans to SME
businesses in the next financial year. 

If you have submitted any recent applications on behalf of your customers, we will
honour all conditional offers on the previous terms of the loans scheme. If you have
any incomplete applications requesting a value of more than £100,000 or that will
deliver a carbon saving of less than 2t CO2 per £1,000 of loan requested, they will
need to be fully completed and submitted before our deadline of 12 April 2010 or
they may be rejected.

Barry Nutley (Partner in Renewable Energy Consultants, Viridis) commented

 " I'm not sure that this is great news for all? By raising the threshold, will surely mean that less SME's will be able to benefit?

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