Hamburg, 14 December 2018 – The alternative investment specialist Aquila Capital has mandated KlimaInvest, a Hamburg-based energy and climate protection agency, to offset all CO2 emissions related to its residential developments. The arrangement covers all CO2 emissions from residential units -- developed by Aquila Capital’s Spanish subsidiary AQ Acentor until 2025. AQ Acentor is among the country’s biggest residential developers with around 4,000 units in development. A typical three-person household in Spain produces two tons of CO2 annually from using gas and electricity, which Aquila Capital will compensate for up to two years per unit by funding renewable energy projects initiated by KlimaInvest.
Roman Rosslenbroich, Co-Founder and CEO of Aquila Capital, comments: “Taking into account ESG criteria and investing into sustainable projects is part of the Aquila Group’s DNA. We have been cooperating with KlimaInvest and other initiatives for years and are proud to have been working in a climate-neutral way since 2007. Our ambition is to take it a step further by offering, for example, sustainable financing vehicles to our investors, as we did with our first green bond in the hydropower segment.”
Sven Schoel, CEO of AQ Acentor, adds: “With this arrangement we want to underline how serious AQ Acentor takes the sustainability of our projects. KlimaInvest, currently with 40 projects across the world, has a positive ecological impact by cutting a large amount of CO2 emissions. In addition, the availability of renewable energy from KlimaInvest’s projects also increases the local population’s quality of life in the long term.”
After the climate neutrality arrangement for the residential units runs out, owners and tenants are free to extend the cooperation with KlimaInvest. Aquila Capital has been working with KlimaInvest since its founding in 2008 to offset the CO2 emissions of the entire corporate group. The climate initiative adheres to the Gold and VCS (Verified Carbon Standard) standards.
Aquila Capital has been active on the Spanish residential real estate market since 2014. Today, its subsidiary AQ Acentor is among the country’s biggest residential developers with around 4,000 units under development, mainly in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Málaga.
