Creating investment capital to decarbonize your buildings

Article by TCI’s CEO, Tim Cresswell

On the journey to net zero for building owners have many challenges: access to capacity, capability, culture readiness, to transform, or corporate will. Arguably investment capital to fund net zero projects is the elephant in the room. No money, no journey.

For over three decades I’ve spent my career developing over $500,000,000 in developing energy performance projects for the public sector. The essence of an energy performance contract is using the energy saved to retire project investment…..full stop. These contracts normally have a set term and provide an energy savings guarantee to mitigate client financial risk. The other option for the public sector is to raise more taxes to create the investment capital required.

If we consider utilizing energy saved from conservation measures and energy made from building green technology to power our buildings, we likely will fund more than 50% of the investment required to decarbonize buildings.

If we look to Europe and the USA these types of contracts have been structured for decades…. there is legacy and history. So why don’t we adopt these best practices?

We would all agree more taxes is the last thing we need given the inflation rate and numerous pressures to house, feed and care for our community.

Without these proven investment mechanisms, we risk being stuck, risk not meeting our carbon targets and cooling the planet for our survival and our children’s children.

We need to get out of our box and think differently. An old business partner of mine once said “ if current solutions don’t satisfy current problems, time to get outside the fence to source new solutions”.