There is a huge market available for the finance companies to enter with retrofit products. Everybody seems to be concentrating on new energy sources only without considering how to make existing equipment more energy efficient and reducing the carbon footprint. Every 1kwh of electricity consumed produces 430g of carbon emissions. There are solution available to make air-conditioning/refrigeration and AC electrical motors up to 30% more energy efficient. 70% of all industrial equipment uses AC induction motors. Financial and carbon savings in this sector alone is huge.The principal behind this idea is to retrofit existing equipment with intelligence to bring them up to standard with today's new technologies. Retrofitting products is financially feasible as opposed to purchasing new equipment. This is one of the biggest reasons that companies avoid upgrading to new energy efficient products. By saving companies 30% on average on their electricity bills should provide the banks with enough incentive to finance these projects as the saving is directly linked to the companies cashflow.The big problem is that electricity is invisable and therefor a problem to manage. Check out these unique solutions on www.enerbrite.co.za .

Congratulations! This is really going to work.

Regards
Yoray Narainpersad

Standard Bank is unequivocally committed to efforts to overcome the issues of global warming in South Africa, Africa and the world. All of us have a responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint and to minimise our impact on the environment. In order to support this objective, we do offer a number of financial solutions including personal loans, overdrafts, further advances on home loans, Access bond facilities and a variety of other products to enable our valued customers to obtain finance for energy saving devices such as solar panels and heating. In 2008, Standard Bank was integral in launching various innovative and pioneering green financing initiatives in Africa, including:

• Being a market leader in carbon finance and trading. We provided carbon financing to projects responsible for a total abatement of 15 million tons of greenhouse gases in developing countries.
• We participated in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), an independent initiative that encourages transparency on all climate change-related issues and provides details of emissions performance and exposure from large corporations and projects globally. Standard Bank is also a signatory investor in the CDP.
• In July 2008, Standard Bank joined the Green Building Council of South Africa as a standard corporate member. All new buildings will now be designed, built and operated in an environmentally sustainable way using the Green Star SA, a building rating system that assesses the environmental performance of buildings. This system takes into account energy and water consumption, materials used and site emissions of buildings.
• We partnered with Eskom in an energy-saving campaign during which employees were encouraged to bring their old incandescent bulbs from home and exchange them (at no cost) for compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) bulbs which consume less energy. During the initiative over 40 000 light bulbs were exchanged.
• No major developmental and infrastructure projects are financed without the bank’s prior understanding of the findings and recommendations contained in relevant Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs). Standard Bank typically uses the World Bank environmental standards as a baseline. If an EIA indicates that a planned project’s existing or potential environmental impact will be too high or too risky, Standard Bank will not finance or support the envisaged transaction or project.
• The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Standard Bank launched the Africa Carbon Asset Development (ACAD) facility, a public-private partnership between UNEP and African banks that aims to stimulate the growth of Africa’s carbon market through investor outreach and seed capital.
• We adopted the Equator Principles, a set of standards for managing social and environmental issues in project finance. This represents a significant step in realising our commitment to socially responsible and sound environmental management. We have developed a set of screening and assessment tools to assist us in implementing the requirements of the Equator Principles in our project finance lifecycle.
• Standard Bank is actively involved in efforts to overcome the issues faced when the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012 and to promote the development of international carbon markets. We have relationships with the European Commission, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) executive board and a number of governments in this regard. We are represented on the board of the Carbon Markets and Investors Association, the financial sector’s main international carbon industry association, whose members account for over 75% of trade on carbon markets.