The New Environmental Protection Fund

Currently, we are planning to establish another private equity fund which is to concentrate on environmental protection investments, including in particular:

- Waste management
- Electricity (basically power from renewable sources)
- Infrastructure
- Biotechnology for the purposes of environmental protection
- Regional development

The selection of environmental protection as an investment area is not accidental. In order to adjust the level of environmental protection to the EU standards in the nearest years, Poland will have to spend nearly 4 billion EUR per annum. The majority of these funds will be provided by the EU. However, to use and benefit from such funds, Polish entities (both public and private) will have to provide their own share (from 20 to 50% of the investment value).

The co-operation of private and public entities with the new fund will not be limited exclusively to co-financing of investment projects. Our analysis shows that, due to numerous reasons, including organisational ones, such entities are not able to absorb funds from the EU (the lack of own capital is not the only barrier).