Legal & General Capital invests a further £15 million in decarbonising homes, bringing total investment in this sector to over £40 million

Legal & General Capital (LGC), a clean energy transition investor and the alternative investment arm of Legal & General Group, has invested £12.5 million, across three companies—Cambridge Electric Cement (CEC), Hometree, and SunRoof—and increased its existing investment in Sero Technologies, as part of its commitment to decarbonise the residential sector. These partnerships demonstrate the breadth of LGC’s investments into decarbonising residential real estate, from reducing construction emissions through to offering the technology and support needed to retrofit existing housing stock.

• CEC, founded by three Cambridge academics, uses a pioneering approach to decarbonise cement production. Cambridge Electric Cement is made in a recycling loop that eliminates the emissions of cement production, saves raw materials, and reduces the emissions associated with steelmaking. With production of traditional cement responsible for 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, this critical technology has the potential to significantly reduce carbon emissions in the construction sector.
• Hometree, a residential services challenger brand, supports the full lifecycle of sustainable home improvements. It's on a mission to help homeowners install green energy hardware into their homes; providing them with repair and maintenance services for alltheir home energy hardware; and, through its recent acquisition of BeWarm[1], Hometree will help people to better afford making their homes more sustainable by offering green loans, leases, and mortgages.
• Sunroof is a Sweden-based provider of building integrated PV roofs, supporting climate change mitigation by accelerating renewable adoption and reducing the use of energy-intensive traditional roof tiles. It provides cutting edge, high efficiency integrated PV roofs to residential customers in several European countries,
• Following an initial investment in January 2022, LGC has increased its investment in Sero Technologies, an energy technology and services company supporting the transition to net zero across the residential housing sector.  Residential retrofitting represents a significant market opportunity to achieve the UK’s legally mandated target of net zero by 2050: almost every home will need to be improved or retrofitted with some combination of enhanced energy efficiency and low carbon heating.

LGC invests in the energy transition, supporting the scale up of innovative businesses that deliver solutions to reduce carbon emissions throughout the economy. Over the past six years, its investments have focused on decarbonising power, transportation, and the built environment. 

Over half (59%) of UK households view more investment in energy efficient homes as an attractive option to address the cost-of-living crisis[2]. LGC's long-term investment support aims to ensure both the successful scale-up of innovative new companies and technologies, and lasting benefits to households as the UK and Europe navigate a new energy landscape and the transition to net-zero. 

LGC’s investments into Cambridge Electric Cement (CEC), Hometree, and SunRoof are the latest in its commitment to investing in businesses, technologies, and innovators that support the transition to net zero—and a natural evolution for its Clean Energy portfolio, whose partners include:

• The Kensa Group, manufacturers and installers of ground-source heat pumps, a renewable technology which provides low cost and low carbon space heating and hot water to all types of properties
• Oxford PV, developers of perovskite (PV)-based solar technology with the goal of making solar energy more affordable and mainstream
• Rovco & Vaarst: Vaarst is a leading provider of subsea 3D computer vision technologies, and Rovco delivers Vaarst’s technology into the energy transition space, with a focus on its use for subsea surveys in offshore wind and oil field decommissioning.

LGC also joined other leading cleantech accelerators and investors in the UK to form a coalition to help inform and shape a new initiative, called Cleantech for UK. This initiative aims to pave the way for a new generation of global cleantech champions in the UK by establishing a dialogue between the UK’s policy-making community and those living the reality of creating, incubating, investing in and scaling cleantech companies. Cleantech for UK is powered by Cleantech Group and supported by Breakthrough Energy.

[1] Acquisition of BeWarm is subject to regulatory approval

[2] Legal & General Rebuilding Britain Index (RBI), March 2023