Loans Worth Up to £500,000 to Cut GP’s Carbon Footprint

GP practices across the UK are to be offered interest free loans of up to £500,000 to help cut down on their carbon emissions, it has recently been revealed.

A deal has been made between the Carbon Trust and the RCGP meaning that practices will be offered tens of thousands of pounds to make green improvements to their building.

These loans will be used to pay for a wide range of changes, including replacing old boilers with energy saving ones, making alternations to the structure of the premises, and installing double glazing to help make the buildings naturally warmer.

An RCGP scheme means that practices will be awarded a ‘green practice award’ if they use a website that helps them to calculate their carbon footprint, and subsequently take steps to lower it.

The loans offered to practices will be, according to the RCGP sustainability lead Dr Tim Ballard, ‘completely cost neutral’.

Over time, the costs of installing green improvements will be balanced by the amount that the practices save in terms of reduced energy bills. It will be worked out how many years it will cost to make the saving back, and each practice will only pay the Carbon Trust back when it sees those savings.

Ballard said that the website is planned to be live in 2010 after it was offered funding by the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

The website will allow practices to enter information including their use of energy, business travel, materials and any waste. This will all go towards calculating their carbon footprint.