Ethical bank offers wind of change for green consumers

Ethical bank offers wind of change for green consumers

You are keen to play your part in tackling climate change and have a bit of money to invest. You are distrustful of some of the big financial institutions but would like to earn a decent return on your cash if possible.

If that sounds like you, then you may be interested to hear that Tuesday sees the launch of a public share issue aimed at raising £8.5m to invest in wind farms and other renewable energy projects across the country.

Ethical bank Triodos is offering people the chance to become shareholders in Triodos Renewables, a public limited company which came into being 13 years ago as the Wind Fund. This is its fourth share issue - the last was in 2005.

Triodos Renewables invests mainly in small and medium-sized wind farms, hydroelectric schemes and emerging renewable energy technology companies in the UK. It owns and operates two wind farms, Caton Moor in Lancashire and Haverigg II in Cumbria, and two single turbines, Gulliver in Lowestoft, Suffolk, (recently out of action for a few months following lightning strikes) and Sigurd in the Orkney Islands. It also owns the Beochlich hydroelectric project in Argyll, Scotland, and it has a stake in Marine Current Turbines, a tidal energy company whose first commercial turbine will begin operating off the coast of Northern Ireland later this year, and is a partner in Connective Energy, which is developing ways to capture and re-use waste heat from industry.

Triodos Renewables plans to use.....continued below

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the money raised by the new share issue to more than double the amount of green electricity it produces in the next two to three years. It is issuing up to 5.5m new shares at £1.65 per share.

A spokesman says an investment in the company's last share issue in 2005 would have returned 22.9%. It adds: "The directors believe the company can reasonably be expected to achieve or exceed this performance in the coming years."

But you need to be aware that this is a long-term investment in a single share, with all the risks that entails. You may not get back the full amount invested, and it may be hard to sell the shares, though Triodos runs a service to match sellers with buyers.

The minimum investment is £825 (500 shares). The spokesman says an investment of £2,970 "will produce renewable energy output equivalent to the average person's annual carbon footprint".

Triodos Renewables is managed by Bristol-based Triodos Bank, which is headquartered in the Netherlands and has more than 20,000 customers here.

Whatever you think about wind farms, we are probably going to see a lot more turbines springing up if Britain is to stand any chance of meeting its targets for renewable energy. But with all the variables at play - the unpredictability of planning decisions, rising steel prices and so on - investing in them may not be suitable for the faint-hearted. A less risky bet may be an ethical fund investing in lots of different companies.

Investors can call 0845 478 6361 for a share issue prospectus.

r.jones@guardian.co.uk

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