Loans available, but eligibility criteria changes
July 01st 2010

BCAS and its members are committed to continue to provide ongoing support for the Carbon Trust 0% business loan scheme. Here, Chris Dee, executive director of BCAS, outlines a change to the scheme There has been an important change to 0% loans eligibility criteria. From 9 July 2010 the amount of CO2 that must be saved per £1000 of loan will increase from 2t CO2 to 2.5t CO2 and the loans will only be available to companies which meet the EU definition of an SME*.

Applications which received a conditional offer by 9 July and an unconditional offer by 23 July are not affected. However, all applications submitted after 9 July or applications which receive an unconditional offer after 23 July will be subject to the new eligibility criteria.

If you would like further information about how a 0% business loan can help cut business energy costs, please contact the Carbon Trust on 01865 885850 or visit website – www.carbontrust.co.uk:

• on the home page scroll down to the heading Services for your Organisation

and click onto 0% business loans

• click onto ‘Find your nearest supplier’

• click onto the link ‘List of Active Suppliers’

• open the spreadsheet and from the dropdown menu (click on the button just to the left of the letter C of Carbon Trust) select Air Compressors or Compressed Air. Note that you may have to scroll up and down to reveal all names.

At the time of writing, you will find more than half those listed are BCAS members and you can find further details by going to the A-Z Member list on the BCAS website or taking a look at customer comments posted for the member company by choosing the AirSAFE Register link on the BCAS home page.

* The EU definition of an SME is an organisation with: Fewer than 250 full time or equivalent employees, an annual turnover not exceeding €50m (about £42.5m) and/or assets not exceeding €43m (approximately £36.5m) with no controlling interest of more than 25% by a non-SME. For project sites based in Northern Ireland, any sized enterprise may be eligible.

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