Council hails success of fully subscribed investment scheme where investors can pledge as little as £5
A council-led initiative in which residents can invest in Glasgow’s action on climate change has raised £1m for solar power projects on council buildings.
Photo by Markus Spiske / Unsplash
The community municipal investment initiative has been managed by Abundance, an ethical investment platform. Through the scheme, investors can pledge as little as £5 to which will provide 4% interest annually for a five-year period. It was fully subscribed ahead of the deadline to apply.
This sort of community municipal investment has already been successful in other parts of the UK, with 18 local authorities raising more than £24m between them to fund different projects intended to reduce carbon emissions.
In Glasgow, the £1m investment fund is now available to the council’s sustainability team to invest in new solar projects.
Glasgow City Council already has a good track record on delivering such work. Last year, it completed rollout of 1,700 solar panels on the roofs of eight public buildings including Kelvin Hall, at a cost of £1m. By generating some 700,000KWh of electricity annually, the installation is expected to save £183,000 in energy costs per year – and pay off the investment within seven years.
A further 36 buildings have been identified as suitable for solar installation.
A second community municipal investment scheme in Glasgow will open in March 2026, this time aiming to raise £1m for projects that enhance greening and sustainability around school and care settings.
Cllr Angus Millar, City Convener for Climate, says: ‘This is great news and shows the support that exists for acting on climate change. This is the first time an investment opportunity like this has been made available in Scotland and we wanted to attract small investors into the scheme. There’s been a positive response from Glasgow residents to this approach to securing funding and hopefully that’s something we can build on.
‘The funding that’s been raised will make a big difference to our efforts to decarbonise the energy consumed in council-owned buildings. Installing solar panels will also eventually provide these buildings with almost two decades of free electricity. We have already received the finance from Abundance and we want to move to implementing new solar installations as quickly as possible. Using innovative financial schemes such as community municipal investment will play a vital role in Glasgow’s plans to become a net zero city.’
In related news:
Leave a Reply