Environmental Markets
Investing in a Low-Carbon Future
One of the roles we play as a financial institution in the transition toward a low-carbon future is to invest alongside our clients in helping to scale up clean technology and other environmentally beneficial projects.
Since the inception of our Environmental Policy Framework in November 2005, we have co-invested nearly $4 billion in clean energy and environmentally beneficial projects. These investments have provided the necessary funding that emerging industries need to achieve the economies of scale that will help them become more cost-competitive. Our portfolio consists of companies and projects in the areas of wind, solar, cellulosic ethanol and geothermal energy. We also have investments in energy efficiency technologies, sustainable real estate development and companies that focus on market infrastructure development.
Through our subsidiary Cogentrix Energy, we continue to expand our clean energy portfolio with a focus on photovoltaic and concentrating solar thermal technologies.
In 2011, Cogentrix furthered its capital investment in Sunray Energy, a 43-megawatt solar thermal project in California which operates the first two utility scale solar trough plants in the world and the longest running solar trough plants in the U.S. It also continued the construction of a 30-megawatt concentrating photovoltaic solar generating project located in southern Colorado. When completed in the second quarter of 2012, it will be the largest facility of its type in the world. Cogentrix is also developing run-of-river hydroelectric projects in Turkey and co-developing a 150 solar photovoltaic project in the southwestern U.S. with an expected online date in early 2013.
In addition to our clean energy investments, the Urban Investment Group (UIG) has committed nearly $1.7 billion in capital to help revitalize inner cities through financing projects that bring needed housing, jobs, education, healthcare and other services to underserved and emerging communities. UIG has increasingly focused on green initiatives to facilitate lower energy costs and more sustainable and vibrant neighborhoods. Two examples:
We committed $23 million to a proprietary fund established by the Jonathan Rose Companies to acquire and renovate occupied affordable multi-family rental, housing in New Jersey. The fund will purchase affordable housing in mass-transit accessible locations throughout the state, with a focus on Hudson and Essex Counties. Part of the fund’s capital will be used for measures that will minimize energy usage and preserve affordability for low and moderate income occupants.
We committed over $51 million to a mixed-use, mixed-income development in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. The project is seeking a LEED Silver rating and will include a cogeneration plant which produces power through natural gas, providing more efficient central heating and cooling.