Chris Holmes, who holds the waste portfolio at the government’s Green Investment Bank, has said the UK still needs more waste infrastructure facilities.
Chris Holmes has emphasised the importance of waste infrastructure
His comments come in the face of differing views over how many new facilities the UK needs to continue to better treat waste, for recycling and to reduce dependence on landfill.
Mr Holmes said that the Bank had conducted a thorough analysis of waste treatment capacity currently available in the UK and concluded that more infrastructure is needed.
In particular, Mr Holmes said that new infrastructure was needed to cater for the commercial & industrial waste market where it is predicted there may be a greater shortfall in the amount of treatment capacity to waste available than compared to facilities for the municipal sector.
Mr Holmes also commented on the process that is undertaken to assess whether an application is suitable for finance, adding that there are three primary areas that the GIB looks at to determine if it should commit finance for a project.
He said: “We try to look at three areas. The first is who is behind the project. There are normally a wide range of parties involved, you want to know who is behind that as a shareholder and do they have the necessary experience and balance sheet strength to ensure that if there any problems they are the right partners to make it work.
“Another area is the feedstock side: where the waste is coming from, who is aggregating it in terms of supply. Finally, we look at the technology that is being proposed. The more proven it is the easier it is to analyse, but that is not to say we would not finance any other technology.
“Perhaps unlike other sources of finance, we are happy to spend time to determine whether technologies are credible. At the same time we have to draw a line at some point and say if it is too early for us to invest in a technology.”
Peter Hunt, WasteCare Group’s MD welcomes the focused support of the Green Investment Bank.
