Carbon Leapfrog is giving pro bono support to the Bathampton Hydro Scheme, near Bath. The request for help came from Bath Community Energy Limited (BCEL) which is a new FSA-approved Industrial and Provident Society registered in England 30960 R (Bencom). The project, based at Bathampton Mill is likely to generate 50Kw daily subject to planning and generate 400 Megawatt Hours of green energy annually. The preliminary studies have been completed and the project has received a 75% grant for a Detailed Study, with the remainder of the money being financed by site owners, Mitchells & Butlers.

BCEL is run for the benefit of the community and has 6 directors and members. Carbon Leapfrog has assigned experienced project manager, Helena Farstad, to manage the support team, comprising law firm Simmons & Simmons, and Spartacus Consulting. The initial work involves supporting plans for a hydro scheme and photovoltaic projects in the Bath area, which will provide investment income and benefit to the community. It is also looking to expand to include wind over time. Bath Community Energy identifies, develops and invests in projects, which will provide an ethical investment to those in the community who want to get involved. This creates, importantly, a return - an income stream/surplus enabling the funding of further community projects. It differs from commercial developers in taking a longterm and ethical approach to investment return and in being able to re-invest some of the surplus back into further projects.

Things are moving apace at Carbon Leapfrog and thanks to our Founding Funder partner, the Tellus Mater Foundation, we can now afford a permanent executive team based in the City of London. Each month we take onboard new projects that receive free professional support from our cross-sector membership and leadership team. This year we aim to help twenty climate change related initiatives that will be supported by our membership ‘club’ made up of likeminded people from the legal, accounting, consulting, engineering, marketing, banking and corporate sectors. If you have a project that could use professional support or want to help us by providing free time or a financial donation, read on...

Carbon Leapfrog is delighted to be offering pro bono support to the 2010 Ashden Award For Sustainable Energy winners. The award ceremony was supported by Imperial College and held at the Royal Geographical Society conference centre, London, on 30 June. Inspirational projects from around the world were featured at the day-long meeting which ended with a special message to the recipients from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Carbon Leapfrog is keen to help the Ashden projects overcome future hurdles and meet their full potential in tackling climate change.

Suleman Limbada (right) and Giles Bristow (left) talked to the 300 delegates at the meeting and explained the services Leapfrog offers.

Garry Charnock, Leapfrog's recently appointed CEO, has been awarded the BITC Leadership for Sustainability award 2010 in the North West. The award is in recognition of his "Inspirational leadership both within RSK and through wider work within the community and world-wide business networks". Representatives from Lancaster University Management School, which sponsors the award, described Garry as 'an established leader' for his work in Ashton Hayes and presented him with his trophy at the annual BITC event at Blackburn Rovers Football Ground on 24 June. For more details click here.

Carbon Leapfrog has agreed to provide pro-bono support to the Falmouth-based GreenTrust Wind initiative. GTW aims to provide social enterprise route to assist communities in South West England that are keen to embrace wind power. The directors of GTW - Jake Burnyeat, Johnny Lewis and Lucy Stone say that their approach is fundamentally different to a ‘commercial’ wind developer and represents a significant advancement on community wind power models demonstrated in the UK to date.

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