EU Legislation Accelerates Pace for Rison
The climate finance company Rison has signed its first contract for Lighting as a Service (LaaS) together with BrightEco. The end customer is Bollnäs Municipality, which now, without having to make any investment of its own, is replacing fluorescent tubes with drastically more energy-efficient LED fixtures. The agreement means that the municipality lowers its operating costs while also receiving maintenance and repairs as part of the package.
The phase-out of fluorescent tubes in Sweden began on February 24, 2023. The transition to more energy-efficient lighting is to be completed within five years, and according to estimates made by the industry, at least 17 million fixtures are to be replaced in Sweden during this period.
Bollnäs Municipality aims to switch to light as a service in all of the municipality's schools and preschools.
Even though many property owners are still unaware of the new law, Rison is already experiencing a significantly increasing demand, which has now resulted in a first contract that will soon be followed by more.
"The scale of investments that need to be made is enormous. Just in Europe, the market for LED is estimated to be worth almost 300 billion SEK by 2024. For property owners and companies to handle these investments on their own is not only inefficient but also in many cases economically very challenging," says Jesper Jonsteg, CEO of Rison.
The figures show that we are at the beginning of a very intense period of transition. To facilitate the transition, Rison offers a comprehensive solution where companies can make the necessary shift to more energy-efficient lighting and have it financed under the same operating agreement. The favorable financing terms are achieved by pooling a large number of projects into a portfolio, making these available to the capital market's major players focused on sustainability and reducing climate impact.
As a first step, Rison is putting together an initial portfolio together with the company BrightEco, which offers Lighting as a Service (LaaS). The portfolio is aimed at Swedish municipalities but also other property owners and manufacturing companies in Europe. The portfolio is expected to reach a volume of between 100 and 500 million SEK per year. In the collaboration, a contract has now been signed with Bollnäs Municipality, covering an initial 1000 sqm of office space.
"Our offer of 'light as a service' is easy to justify because the energy savings usually exceed the fee for having us handle the phase-out. And then the agreement usually means that we take care of replacement, repairs, and other maintenance. The challenge so far has been scalability, and that's where Rison with its portfolio financing enables both us and our clients to make a better deal the more projects that are put in place," says Joel Smedberg, founder of BrightEco.
The agreement demonstrates the strength of Rison's model, which has scalability and flexibility to handle large volumes of various types of climate-enhancing projects, for example in the form of LED lighting, heating, ventilation, electric transport, and solar energy.
