Last week we launched our 12th bond offer, available both as a direct investment to the CBS, or through Ethex for an IFISA eligible investment. In just one week on the Ethex platform, and we’ve almost reached 20% of our target of £800,000.
Why do we fundraise via bonds?
It all starts with education. Nine years ago, Robert Schrimpff – Solar for Schools co-founder and CEO and one of the CBS Directors - met with a group of students. They asked him ‘what can we do to stop climate change?’. A question that remains as poignant and relevant today as it was then; when the seed was sown that grew to be the CBS.
At the current pace of change, the answer to this question is bleak. But there is hope. When enough people apply pressure in the right direction, progress can be made.
We believe that educating and empowering the next generation is key to slowing the pace of climate change, so education absolutely remains our central mission. If students can learn what society needs to do to decarbonise, then share that knowledge with others, they can help accelerate the pace of change. With two billion young people in the world, each one of those young people need only to persuade three adults to make changes, and we can speed up our transition, from the bottom up.
“A lot of people just don’t realise what issues there are, so we need to raise awareness that the planet is being destroyed, temperatures are rising, ice caps melting and much more. And we need to let people know about the changes that they can make to help” Joanna Singleton, Year 8 student at St Christopher’s CE High School.
Funding powered by the sun - and our growing community
The education we deliver, through Solar Options for Schools is hands on, as this video shows. It’s also super relevant; students learn direct from their own school rooftops. In 2024 alone, the Solar for Schools education team reached over 35,000 primary and secondary students with in-person assemblies and workshops. But there are over 10 million school children in the UK so there's still a lot of work to be done.
To support and grow this vital education, we developed a means to fund it by installing solar panels on schools. And to make these solar projects viable, we fundraise from individuals, parents, contributors and through grants. But it's largely thanks to bondholders - who invest from as little as £50 – that these projects are viable, unlocking powerful educational opportunities for young people, as well as helping schools save on their energy bills and cut carbon emissions.
One of our long-standing bondholders recently said to us – ‘it’s one raindrop joined by many, many others, makes a pool, a puddle, a lake etc’
If you are already one of those raindrops, thank you. If not, perhaps you will consider joining our community. We still have a lot of work to do...
Want to know more?
Watch this short summary of a webinar held this week – in which two directors of the CBS took part in a Q&A hosted by Ethex.
Watch our 3 minute film here.
Ready to invest? Head over to our invest page where you can find out more.
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