Kosta Hatzidimitriou was happy when he stumbled upon a green mortgage for his recent purchase of a
three-bedroom single-family home.
"The wife and I are trying to get more environmentally conscious and energy efficient," he said.
"Personally, I think it's about time the banks got involved (in enviro-friendly products) because
everybody else is."
His new Citizens Bank of Canada mortgage included a $10,000 line of credit at prime for energyefficient
upgrades and a blue recycling bin filled with $875-worth of information and coupons, including
a $375 home energy audit to help determine what improvements can be made to his 18-year-old
Toronto-area home.
"It's interesting to find out a bank is doing this instead of some government agency," Hatzidimitriou
said. "I like that."
Banks and credit unions are starting to offer what they call green mortgages and green loans for
energy-efficient improvements, and plan to roll out new products and improvements this fall and into
next spring.
Citizens Bank began offering green mortgages last April in Ontario and will expand them to other
provinces by next spring, said John Filice, director of residential mortgages.
Ontario-based Alterna Savings started last spring to offer green loans of up to $100,000 at preferential
rates for energy efficient retrofits, said Carl Wills, Alterna's credit product manager.
And B.C.'s Vancity Credit Union (which wholly owns Citizens Bank) has been involved for many years
in financing green and sustainable commercial properties, and now offers a climate-change mortgage.
Vancity doesn't advertise this mortgage; instead it takes the money usually spent acquiring mortgage
business -- $1,250 per mortgage -- and invests it in a climate change fund.
Even some of the bigger banks are examining green possibilities.
"We are very seriously looking at this," said Kelly Hechler, spokesperson for TD Canada Trust. "We
know there's interest out there. We've seen it in polls we've done of homeowners who say it's
becoming an important thing to them."
The Edmonton Journal
Tue 04 Sep 2007
Page: A5
Section: News
Byline: Kathryn Young
Source: CanWest News Service
