Green loan products can help customers to reduce their carbon footprint and lower their energy bills

Soaring energy costs are leading many people to make a new year’s resolution to live more sustainably by making their homes more energy efficient. Research carried out in 2021 by AIB found that 60 per cent of Irish homeowners said their home would require a deep retrofit to significantly improve its energy efficiency; 41 per cent were in the process of upgrading, or had already upgraded their windows, doors or insulation; and 10 per cent were planning to undertake improvement works over the following three years.

Asmita Desai and her husband Kiran Eregowda have already embarked on their home energy-efficiency journey. They moved into their first home in Dublin last year and took out a green loan with AIB to help renovate their house.

“Our house was built in 1965, and it has an E energy rating,” Desai explains. “We’ve lived in places that have had an E rating before, so we know it can get very cold, especially in the winter. We also wanted to live more sustainably, so we took out a green loan to install solar panels, wall and attic insulation, new windows, new doors and a new heat pump that doesn’t burn oil. Getting the green loan with AIB was very easy and didn’t take a lot of time, and this retrofit should bring our house to an A or B energy rating.

“As of now, we’re just two people in the house,” she continues “In the future, we might have kids and use more energy, so we figured that now would be the right time to make our house energy efficient and sustainable.”

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The solar panels will bring an added advantage. “This will help us save on energy bills as well as send any surplus back to the grid through the microgeneration programme,” she adds.

In line with its commitment to support the transition to a lower-carbon future, AIB offers green loan products that can help customers not only to reduce their carbon footprint but also to lower their energy bills. Among these is the competitively priced Green Personal Loan with a variable rate of 6.25 per cent (6.4 per cent APR). Customers can borrow between €3,000 and €60,000 with terms of up to 10 years depending on the amount and purpose of the loan. Customers can apply on the AIB mobile app for amounts between €3,000 and €30,000 and by telephone (0818 724725) for amounts between €30,000 and €60,000.

Based on AIB’s €20,000 standard five-year personal loan, the current rate for the Green Personal Loan would represent a saving of around €1,352.40 over a five-year period.

The green loan rate is available where customers spend 50 per cent or more of the amount borrowed on a green initiative such as wall, attic and floor insulation; window and door upgrades or replacements; and ventilation systems. The bank also offers the low green rate for the installation of renewable energy systems, including heat pumps and solar panels; sustainable water systems; boiler upgrades and pipe insulation. Customers can also draw down a green loan for battery electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles and home charger units.

AIB chief sustainability and corporate affairs officer Mary Whitelaw points to the savings that can be delivered by such measures. Homeowners in an average four-bed semidetached house can save €7,429 per year by upgrading from a BER G rating to a BER D2 rating. Owners of two-bed apartments can expect to save over €3,500 per year through a similar upgrade.

“As Ireland’s largest financial services provider with a customer base now heading to over three million customers, AIB is already actively supporting the transition to a low-carbon future by reducing our own carbon footprint and helping our customers to do the same,” Whitelaw adds. “Our ambition is that 70 per cent of new lending will be green or transition by 2030. And we are making great progress as green lending already increased to 24 per cent of new lending in the first nine months of 2022.”

She believes that consumers will play a key role in delivering Ireland’s carbon reduction targets for 2030 but they will require assistance in translating intention into action. “It is clear that the upfront costs can present an initial challenge for those resolving to make greener choices in 2023. Given the importance of the sustainability agenda, AIB is supporting personal customers in the transition to a greener future by offering attractively priced green loans that can help them lower their carbon emissions and put the country on the path to a more sustainable future.”

https://aib.ie/our-products/loans/green-personal-loan