Asper Investment Management – through its fund Asper Duke – won the IJGlobal ESG Awards 2024 trophy for developer of the year in Europe for, as one judge puts it, “standing out as being different”.

Another of the IJ independent panel of judges said: “Asper Duke has an innovative model to support much-needed infrastructure in the UK and it's particularly impressive that it is partnering with the public sector.”

The fund manager raised Asper Duke in 2022 as a new vehicle structured for investment in the UK district heating sector.

Asper Duke is a £220 million investment vehicle established to support its portfolio company 1Energy to become the UK’s largest developer and operator of low and zero carbon (LZC) district heating networks.

Asper operates with a rigorous sustainability framework, governed by its Responsible Investment Policy and together with 1Energy it created ESG policies and practices:

• sustainability policy – touches upon each material ESG topic relevant to 1Energy’s operations and formulates goals and processes in place around each
• good neighbour and nature plans – aim to document the actions that 1Energy took or planned to take around each project to the benefit of local communities and natural habitats, as a framework for communicating these efforts
• stakeholder engagement plan – across all sites, 1Energy has assessed material stakeholders and planned relevant engagement actions that could benefit stakeholder engagement and good relationships
• risk map – to assess key sustainability risks and opportunities across all material topics, including thorough climate risk and opportunities
• quarterly ESG monitoring system – via its ESG tool, 1Energy reports on its ESG performance on a quarterly basis as well as yearly basis. This allows Asper to report via multiple channels
• supplier screening – a tool aimed at systematically evaluating new suppliers against key ESG criteria

Asper’s financial and operational support has enabled 1Energy to grow and progress through its decarbonisation ambitions.

It currently has 10 LZC heating networks in the pipeline in Bradford, Rotherham, Exeter and Milton Keynes, with planned operations to begin from 2025 – some of which were supported by the UK government’s Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF).

Among projects initiated, the Bradford Energy Network (BEN) has the potential to become UK’s largest air source heat pump network and replace gas boilers in the city centre, reducing emissions by around 8kt of CO2 per year.

Construction works for the network in Bradford started in 2023 and 1Energy aims to start delivering low carbon heat to customers in 2025.

In 2024, the Bradford Combined Court Centre and Magistrates Court signed a contract with 1Energy to secure a 20-year agreement to connect the city’s courts to BEN.

The submission states: “District heating – or heat networks – is a system that provides heat for multiple buildings or facilities instead of each building having its own heating system. With our Duke fund, we support 1Energy to fuel district heating projects with 100% sustainable energy.

“Given the nature of 1Energy’s business, 100% of our transactions (related to expanding current district heating assets and progressing through our pipeline of development projects) had ESG elements embedded into it, related to the decarbonisation of heat.”