We mentioned a couple of months ago that West Berkshire Council recently made history when it launched a green bond allowing local residents to invest in a local renewable energy project.

The bond raised £1 million from more than 600 investors from July to October 2020, with over a fifth invested by local people.

This has now been followed by Warrington Borough Council, which opened its first Community Municipal Investment (CMI) at the end of August.  They are looking to raise up to £1 million to help fund the development of a new solar farm.

This will be followed by Leeds in the next few months, and a further 10 Councils are in the pipeline to launch their own bonds for climate and environmental projects – all issued via Abundance Investment.

Time for Lewes to support green bonds?

With councils facing more and more funding pressures, we think these resident-funded green bonds could provide an effective way to fund the projects required to enable districts like ours to reach their net zero carbon emissions targets.

And with bank and building society savings rates at zero, the fixed rates of return that these bonds can offer could be of a lot of interest to savers looking to do good while getting a return on their cash.

We’re looking to encourage Lewes District Council and East Sussex Council to consider Green Bonds as a way of funding green projects in our area. If you’d like to put your or your organisation’s name on a letter of support, please get in touch…