City chief lays out plans to make Glas-gow even greener in low-carbon future

Speaking at the opening of All-Energy – the UK’s largest event for the energy sector – the leader of Glasgow council outlined the city’s plans for growth and sustainability.

As part of Glasgow’s ‘Energy and Carbon Master Plan’, Councillor Gordon Matheson spoke of carbon reduction projects through a variety of initiatives such as a new recycling and a renewable energy centre.

The centre, which is due to open next year, will reduce landfill by 90% and reduce costs by £250 million, while recovering enough energy to power 22,000 homes. 

He also highlighted the city’s green street-lighting project – ‘a first of its kind in the UK’ – which will see the replacement of 10,000 street lanterns with low energy versions along main arterial roads leading into the city. 

The Street Lighting project utilised the UK Green Investment Bank’s specially designed Green Loan to finance the switch to the low-energy lighting solution.  A Shepherd and Wedderburn team of lawyers, led by partner Clare Foster, worked with the bank to document the Green Loan product and advised it in connection with the provision of the Green Loan to Glasgow council.  

Foster said: “We were delighted to work with the Green Investment Bank  team and are so pleased to see the first deployment of the Green Loan with Glasgow City Council.  By using the “spend to save” model, the Green Loan not only provides a flexible financing option for local authorities across the UK but also provides a powerful tool to facilitate energy efficiency measures.”

All Energy-delegates can learn more about the Green Loan and other renewable funding solutions when Foster chairs  the Acceleration of energy efficiency in Scotland and funding innovations seminar in Glasgow today (7 May) at 1.30pm. 

The attendance for day 1 (May 6)  at All-Energy 2015  in Glasgow was 5,673 people –  which is 24.5% higher than last year (when 4,555 attended the event in Aberdeen.)

the 2014 figure of 4555.