RBS to provide grants and ‘road-testing’ for resource efficiency innovations
Green SME news – by Louise Bateman
12th March 2014
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is on the hunt for innovative ideas and “garage-tested” green solutions that could enable the bank to become more resource efficient and, it says, help small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) get their products to market more successfully.
RBS, which is facing allegations of “morally wrong” treatment towards small businesses, said it will provide support, including grant funding, to SMEs, entrepreneurs and inventors with pioneering resource efficiency ideas that could potentially address an “infrastructure challenge” the bank is facing across 2,500 buildings it owns. RBS is also searching for “garage-tested” and market ready innovations that could be deployed more quickly to help cut its use of energy, water and waste beyond the 25 per cent it currently estimates is achievable across its operations.
Innovation Gateway
Innovation Gateway
The challenge is being launched today via a new online platform called the ‘RBS Innovation Gateway’. It aims to simultaneously help SMEs get their products tested and out to a wider market more quickly and successfully and “put banking back in the place it should be”, according to RBS deputy chief executive Chris Sullivan.
“The Innovation Gateway is [an] ideal opportunity to use resources that RBS has got […] by using our premises as a laboratory, then using our expertise commercially [and] to take those propositions and make them marketable,” Sullivan told green entrepreneurs and innovators this week.
“The Innovation Gateway is [an] ideal opportunity to use resources that RBS has got […] by using our premises as a laboratory, then using our expertise commercially [and] to take those propositions and make them marketable,” Sullivan told green entrepreneurs and innovators this week.
RBS said it would not be offering financial support to SMEs through its Innovation Gateway, but those with a winning concept would receive a £3000 grant to develop it and the bank was also “keen” to explore “adequate financial opportunities” within its existing funding structure or through its network of organisations.
Independent inquiry
Independent inquiry
The state-owned bank has suffered huge losses since being rescued by the Government during the financial crisis. It has recently found itself subject to an independent inquiry into the groups’ lending practices to small businesses after a Government advisor, Lawrence Tomlinson, alleged in November that it has been profiting from small businesses in financial distress by pushing them into a turnaround division of the bank. Since then Tomlinson claims to have amassed a dossier of 1000 businesses that have received “morally wrong” treatment from RBS.
The bank has also been ‘shamed’ for its continued lending to fossil fuel companies.
But Sullivan said he was embarking on a new strategy for RBS that included putting “bankers back on the streets again in a modern way” and facilitating business sustainability.
“If I look at the businesses that bank with us, energy and the provision of energy at the right cost and at the right time consistently is going to become a major issue and any organisation that can help that to happen is going to be highly valued by the people it helps. I want to put my boring bank in that position.”
Eligibility criteria
But Sullivan said he was embarking on a new strategy for RBS that included putting “bankers back on the streets again in a modern way” and facilitating business sustainability.
“If I look at the businesses that bank with us, energy and the provision of energy at the right cost and at the right time consistently is going to become a major issue and any organisation that can help that to happen is going to be highly valued by the people it helps. I want to put my boring bank in that position.”
Eligibility criteria
Under the Innovation Gateway rules, projects need to show they are technology-based or processes or designs that can drive efficiency savings. They will also have to pass the RBS ‘next 75 per cent’ test. This is because it is estimated current technologies and solutions will only get organisations 25 per cent along their journey to 100 per cent resource efficiency.
One company that has already passed the ‘next 75 per cent’ test is Sarvotex. The SME has developed the ‘Vortex EcoSmart’ hand dryer. The dryer has its own energy recovery system built into it and sensors to send data to a central building management system to show exact energy usage and costs.
One company that has already passed the ‘next 75 per cent’ test is Sarvotex. The SME has developed the ‘Vortex EcoSmart’ hand dryer. The dryer has its own energy recovery system built into it and sensors to send data to a central building management system to show exact energy usage and costs.
First commercial order
Following a trial at two RBS buildings, Sarvotex was able to demonstrate to RBS that each building using the technology was saving approximately £2,500 against paper and energy over a seven year period, according to Syed Ahmed, managing director, Sarvotex.
“We’ve now secured our first commercial order from RBS, so RBS have helped us pilot test and hopefully now rollout the concept,” he said.
The RBS Innovation Gateway is being launched in partnership with 2degrees, a global online community of sustainability professionals.
The gateway is open to anyone to join and provides an open forum for innovators to share ideas and collaborate publicly. But innovators will be able to submit their ideas, prototypes and solutions via a confidential channel where the submissions will be considered by a panel of experts.
Open and transparent
The RBS Innovation Gateway is being launched in partnership with 2degrees, a global online community of sustainability professionals.
The gateway is open to anyone to join and provides an open forum for innovators to share ideas and collaborate publicly. But innovators will be able to submit their ideas, prototypes and solutions via a confidential channel where the submissions will be considered by a panel of experts.
Open and transparent
John Hayes, head of corporate services Property, RBS, said the process for submitting innovations would be as “open and transparent as possible” to ensure SMEs were given access to a wider market as possible.
The RBS Innovation Gateway follows the launch in January of a new RBS energy efficiency loan fund and a nationwide energy audit programme to support small businesses looking to cut their energy costs and make their businesses greener.
The RBS Innovation Gateway follows the launch in January of a new RBS energy efficiency loan fund and a nationwide energy audit programme to support small businesses looking to cut their energy costs and make their businesses greener.
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