First Steps: Advantages
	Step 1: Change your thinking
	Step 2: Establish a baseline
	Step 3: Compare with other facilities
	Step 4: Understand payback
	Step 5: Choose your measures
	Step 6: Arrange financing
	Step 7: Track your savings
	Step 8: Celebrate your success

Step 6: Arrange Financing

The following financing techniques can often be combined to help you pay for energy-efficient measures in commercial and institutional buildings.

Option 1: Financial Incentives

Funding from ecoENERGY Retrofit and other financial assistance across Canada can help you reduce your payback periods.

Option 2: Internal Financing and Borrowing

Savings should continue after the payback period ends, so energy efficiency measures are a worthwhile long-term investment. Your organization may be able to pay for measures out of your own funds while still balancing the books.

Option 3: Bank Loans

If your organization does not have cash in hand, talk to your bank. Even in times of high interest rates, the value of your energy savings is often greater than the loan payment, so you are ahead every year with a relatively small investment of funds. Try to combine measures so that the payback periods are shorter than the loan.

Option 4: Energy Performance Contracting

Energy management firms will sometimes plan, implement and monitor your retrofit projects, and you pay them out of your future energy savings with no up-front costs or risks. This is often more expensive than paying costs yourself, and energy management services companies usually restrict this arrangement to larger clients. Read about energy performance contracting for general information and publications.

Option 5: Leasing or Instalment Payments

Some leasing companies, equipment manufacturers and energy distributors will lease energy-efficient equipment and systems. There is usually no up-front cost, and you make monthly or quarterly payments for a specified term, but repairs and ongoing monitoring may cost extra. If the financing is considered "instalment payments," a "lease purchase," "financing lease" or "conditional sale," you keep the equipment at the end of the term. As with leasing a car, small payments are spread out over time, but interest rates are typically higher than a traditional loan.

Option 6: Manufacturer-Guaranteed Savings

Some manufacturers offer guaranteed energy savings in addition to performance warranties for their equipment.

Option 7: Issuing Bonds

Although this practice is rare, learn how the University Health Network in Toronto issued bonds to financial investors to pay for energy retrofits and new buildings.

Other Options

Talk to your accountants about other methods to finance your projects.

Next: Step 7: Track your savings