Participating bank in Georgia implements sustainable energy solutions at own premises

JSC Bank Republic, established in 1991 (now TBC Bank), a socially responsible bank following the highest business standards always paid special attention to social and environmental standards, employee rights, safe and comfortable working conditions.

Having joined the EBRD’s Energocredit facility, the participating financial institution (PFI) decided to start implementing the sustainable energy solutions, first at own premises, gaining practical knowledge about the benefits.

The PFI’s head office is located in a seven storey building in Tbilisi. The last renovation of the building took place in 2005, when the heating, cooling and ventilation systems were installed.

The PFI addressed Energocredit for assistance with project development to guarantee the highest energy savings.

Energocredit engineers performed the energy audit to identify the key areas for energy efficiency improvements. The main suggestion was to adopt the heat recovery system at air-handling units and install the new LED lighting.

The $86,400 investment allows the bank to decrease its energy consumption by $26,500 per year or 36 per cent of the current energy consumption. The investment will repay itself out of energy savings in just three years, which is a very fast repayment period for a building modernization project. In future, these savings will become the PFI’s income. Last but not least, the PFI’s employees and clients will benefit from higher comfort in the building. And happy employees mean better business.

This is a good example of how participating banks can get a direct knowledge of what is sustainable energy and benefit from advisory package. Such projects not only provide energy and cost savings, but the on-hand knowledge on how to best develop and adapt the new loan product on sustainable energy, what to offer to clients, how to train the employees. As the old saying goes “Better to see (or try) once, than to hear 100 times”.