The London Mayor’s Energy Efficiency Fund (MEEF), managed by Amber Infrastructure Group, has entrusted Burges Salmon with providing debt and equity funding solutions to Rock Road, a subsidiary of Rock Rail.

The funding will finance a new fleet of Wrightbus Electroliner buses, to be in operation on Transport for London’s (TfL) Route 111 from Heathrow to central London. The vehicles are zero-emission and will replace old diesel buses saving an estimated 1,750 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

MEEF is a £500 million investment fund established by the Greater London Authority (GLA) with funding from the European Commission, which will help achieve London’s ambition of being a net zero carbon city by 2030.

This project is an important step in tackling London’s air pollution and supports Sadiq Khan’s commitment to zero emission transport in the capital. Since its launch in July 2018, MEEF has mobilised over £315 million of capital and reduced London’s CO2 emissions by more than 16,000 tonnes, which is equivalent to taking 14,500 cars off the road.

Last year, Burges Salmon also advised MEEF on Vehicle-as-a-Service (VaaS) provider Breathe to supply zero emissions vehicles to private hire drivers.

The Burges Salmon team advising on the deal was led by Edinburgh-based partner Stuart McMillan, alongside director Alistair Rattray, both from the firm’s Banking and Finance team and supported by partner Chris Simms and director Chris Lewis from the firm’s Projects team by partner Camilla Usher-Clark and senior associate Peter Dunn from the firm’s Corporate team.

Alistair Rattray comments: “Advising impactful fund initiatives such as MEEF means we have played a part in providing a powerful model for the delivery of high quality investment initiatives that provide significant progress on meeting climate change commitments.”