Who pays for sustainability?

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By Dave Rowlands, managing director of Green Liquidity

Sustainability, both in terms of production and consumption, is currently at the forefront of many minds globally.

World leaders have signed treaties promising stronger efforts toward battling climate change, reducing carbon emissions, and generally looking after the planet’s health. Consumers also seem more inclined to play their part in helping preserve the environment and are willing to back their personal values with their spending pounds, according to YouGov data.

So, 2022 is the year you need to make sure your business is moving to Carbon Neutrality by making investments in new technologies, supply chain management and most of all educating clients and employees that you are ‘Green’… then is it safe to assume that everything will be ok?Well, in short no. In fact, it’s all going to be far harder than you might. Unfortunately, the media has filled columns and columns of news feeds with ‘Greenwashing’ and most people now don’t know where to start. Couple this with the ever-growing number of initiatives, green consultants, and a lack of a basic joined up action plan from government and local authorities – which all in all means making the right long-term investments is very difficult.

At Green Liquidity we recently had a client whose business plan was to directly target the energy user space with a premier product that focused on only supplying pure green renewable energy. A perfect business that illustrates the opportunity to directly pass on the true costs of ‘Green & Sustainability’ to the client without compromise. The background to their underlying financial models proves that the cost to provide a sustainable offering can be paid in advance by a defined client base. A great new energy business that we look forward to talking about more in the future.

So, what happens when you have done your business planning, spoke to all the consultants and spent a few hours on the Government website trying to fathom out any investment grants. Well, you should have some form of investment plan ready to execute? But wait, what happens if you can’t directly transfer the cost of making the investment through to your client base? What does the return-on-investment look like now, when your new sustainable project is sitting on your balance sheet for 5-7 years and potentially tying up much needed cash flow.

Well, there is a much better way to work on the initial investment plan where Green Liquidity can help you make the investment without deploying capital. As a specialist finance company within the Renewable & Sustainable sector we look at what the short- and long-term financial goals are for our clients and match them with finance agreements that match them against important factors such as cash flow, cost savings and most importantly incoming revenue.

We know there is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution in the marketplace that will cover all investments and client needs - so whatever you need to finance, from small CHP system to large scale windfarms, EV charger roll-outs to LED lighting solutions, Green Liquidity has the experience and track record of delivering.

But, and this is the biggest hurdle to all companies that are making progress to a carbon neutral position, there is a huge lack of investment money in the marketplace. High street banks are constantly ‘Greenwashing’ but ask your local bank manager for a loan to pay for a new Heat Pump for your business and they will run a mile. Governments are getting better with grants, but they are still a long way behind where they need to be, and the large investment companies are generally only concerned with infrastructure focused transactions.

As the old saying goes, ‘Cash is King’, and if you can’t directly move your investment costs to your client base on day one, then talk to Green Liquidity and we will show you a better way to make the investment flexible and more financially beneficial to you.

Dave Rowlands (pictured above) - dave.rowlands@greenliquidity.co.uk - 0121 387 7199

This commercially-backed article was published in the January/February 2022 ediiton of Birmingham Business.