Green fund

Ed Miliband, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, has called on UK companies to take advantage of £100m in funding available to help them become more energy efficient.

The majority of the cash will be delivered in England through the Carbon Trust’s existing interest-free loans scheme for companies to buy equipment.

The funding announced in the Budget will help businesses save more than £20m a year in energy bills, with annual CO₂ savings of 140,000 tonnes.

Miliband said: 'Interest-free loans totalling £100m over the next two years were announced in the Budget and this real help, delivered by the Carbon Trust in England, means that businesses in every corner of Britain can now improve their energy efficiency and make real savings on their energy bills at a time when every penny counts.'

The Carbon Trust is already helping many businesses across the UK to cut costs by saving energy through its interest-free loans scheme.

Precision Engineering Plastics (PEP) in London, for example, worked with the trust to improve its energy efficiency through a progressive strategy of modernisation, helped by a Carbon Trust interest-free loan of £67,686.

The loan scheme has generated annual energy savings of £26,436, with an overall average payback period of 2.5 years, and has saved 187.2 tonnes of CO₂ from being emitted into the atmosphere.