The Carbon Trust is to improve access for small and medium businesses to over £100m in interest-free and unsecured loans, it was announced today. The move is intended to help more businesses survive the recession by cutting both their energy costs and their carbon footprints.
Thousands of small businesses have already slashed their annual energy bills, some by as much as 75%, by installing new energy-saving equipment paid for by Government-funded Carbon Trust loans.
Now the Carbon Trust has extended eligibility for the recently-expanded loan fund. The minimum loan amount has been lowered to just £3,000, putting the loans within reach of micro-businesses; the upper limit has been doubled from £200,000 to £400,000 to meet the needs of small and medium businesses with high energy spends, such as manufacturing companies.
The Carbon Trust expects to deliver over £100m in loan funding to UK SMEs over the next two years, including almost £84m in England allocated by the Government as part of Budget 2009.
In most cases, businesses taking a Carbon Trust loan to update their equipment find the savings they make on energy bills exceed the cost of the loan repayments. This means they benefit from brand new equipment, increased efficiency and reduced running costs, all at no expense to themselves. They also help to drive the UK’s move to a low carbon economy.
Read more: http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/News/presscentre/loans-expansion.htm
www.ukba.co.uk
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