News: Photovoltaics
8 July 2021
First Solar invests $11m in underserved American communities
Cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film photovoltaic (PV) module maker First Solar Inc of Tempe, AZ, USA says that it has invested $11m in efforts to revitalize American communities and bridge racial gaps in health, wealth and opportunity. As part of the initiative, the firm has purchased $10m of Impact Notes from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and made a $1m Transformational Deposit in the Hope Credit Union.
“LISC and Hope Credit Union are doing a tremendous job at addressing inequality and, as America’s solar company, we’re proud to be supporting their mission,” says First Solar’s CEO Mark Widmar. “By working with companies like ours to reallocate cash holdings, they’re creating capital for underserved communities and powering sustainable and inclusive economic change,” he adds. “We hope that these investments, which are in line with our commitment to socially and environmentally responsible solar, will help communities across America.”
LISC is a national non-profit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that was conceived by the Ford Foundation in 1979. It has since has invested $22bn to build or rehab more than 419,000 affordable homes and apartments and develop 70.3 million square feet of retail, community and educational space. The Impact Notes are fixed-income debt securities issued by LISC, which help to fund community and economic development projects across 36 cities and 2100 rural counties in 45 states.
“Innovative companies like First Solar are putting their treasury dollars to work in ways that reflect their corporate values and objectives,” comments LISC’s chief operating officer Annie Donovan. “In effect, First Solar is leveraging its business strength to help finance lasting economic, social and racial justice.”
First Solar’s Transformational Deposit in Mississipi-based Hope Credit Union will support its work to provide business, mortgage and consumer loans, and other financial services to black communities across the south of the USA. HOPE works to import capital through Transformational Deposits into underbanked communities where poverty has constrained the amount of savings and other assets. First Solar’s $1m investment provides the capital required for HOPE to finance small businesses, housing, healthcare and other vital needs, such as helping communities to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
“First Solar’s Transformational Deposit in Hope Credit Union will fuel life-changing opportunities for some of America’s most vulnerable people and places,” says HOPE’s CEO Bill Bynum. “Investing in institutions owned by people of color and women is a proven way to advance our nation’s collective prosperity.”
HOPE (Hope Enterprise Corporation, Hope Credit Union and Hope Policy Institute) provides financial services; aggregates resources and engages in advocacy to mitigate the extent to which factors such as race, gender, birthplace and wealth limit one’s ability to prosper. Since 1994, HOPE has generated more than $2.9bn in financing that has benefitted more than 1.7 million people in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.
