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14 | 14th - 20th February 2014 | utILIty WeeK Investigation: Community energy The family home on the Isle of Wight was equipped as an eco-show home but backers failed to emerge and after David Green's death his widow was forced to sell it to settle his personal debts tied up with the Ecoisland project. Churchill's "blood, toil, tears and sweat" quote. Technology partners, dignitaries and 100 Club members line up not only to applaud the concept but also to express the depth of their faith in Green. They praise his "fire in the belly" and charisma. Bruce Huber, founding partner of invest- ment firm Alexa Capital, says: "David's work in driving a trusted community brand is very important. It is all about trust." We are introduced to three 100 Club members. While none are big hitters, they are sincere in their enthusiasm. There is a local solar installer, the director of Ventnor Botanic Garden and, more tenuously, the Derbyshire-based inventor of a contraption to process supermarket leovers into pig food. Perhaps it would not have mattered who the 100 Club members were at that stage, so long they put up the money to keep Ecois- land going until the serious capital arrived. However, none of them actually invested a penny. The solar installer had been paying subscription fees to the CIC but did not kick in any extra for the Esco launch. The pig food specialist was told he could join without pay- ing, as he had already invested in bringing his invention to an island recycling centre. Attendees of the launch could be forgiven for thinking Bruce Huber, founding partner at investment firm Alexa Capital, was round- ing up the big bucks. However, he tells Utility Week he only ever provided informal advice, as someone who had a home on the Isle of Wight himself. Part of that advice was that Green needed to raise tens of millions of pounds. "He [Green] had a number of cor- porates who were very interested indeed and who were discussing six digit sums… that would have certainly got him off the launch pad," says Huber. "If David was schooled out of Harvard, he would have written the business plan and gone to the market," says Huber, "but David was more old-school and went on force of personality. What was missing was the more classical financial and operational aspects of the business plan that needed to be backfilled. Unfortunately, he was not able to backfill that fast enough." On 1 October 2013, Green officially threw in the towel and wrote to creditors, who were owed nearly £400,000 in total. "It is with deep regret that the Ecoisland Partner- ship Community Interest Company has been forced to close its doors and wind up its affairs on the island," it stated. "This action follows extensive funding rounds and a sig- nificant number of refinance packages that unfortunately have not come to fruition. "There is no positive spin to put on this; the vision of the Island as a sustainable region was clearly a valuable one but the necessary ongoing funding streams have not consolidated around the plan." Despite some warning signs, the sudden- ness of the collapse took people by surprise. Chestnutt says: "We were, like everybody else, shocked and astonished by what hap- pened." The council worker says: "We knew things were not as good as they had been, but I don't think people were expecting the whole thing to implode so quickly." Even Green's closest family were in the dark about the company's difficulties until days before he wrote to creditors. By the time he told his wife, Patricia, and grown- up sons Matthew and Luke the extent of the problems, he was up to his eyeballs in per- sonal debt. He had sunk their life savings into the project and borrowed heavily from family and friends in a desperate attempt to keep Ecoisland afloat. The liquidator's state- ment of affairs shows the company owed him £45,000 when it was wound up. The only clue Luke had that things were not going well was that his father spent even more time on the project than the 60-hour weeks he used to put in for the UKSA. He says: "He was working 80-hour weeks, prob- ably for two years. Even when he was on holiday, he was still working, so you knew it was not going brilliantly, but because he was so positive about funding channels it put you at ease. "Really, the first sign it was really going badly was when I heard my parents were going to have to sell their house and Ecois- land was going into liquidation. It all esca- lated very fast aer that." There was a family crisis meeting and they formulated a plan for David and Patri- cia to sell the family home, move into Luke's house in Plymouth, find jobs and start again. They would "probably still be in quite a bit of debt", says Luke, but "it all looked quite positive". Green reflected on his mistakes, telling Luke he should have made sure he had fund- ing before anything else and not used his own money. "He was not trying to make him- January 2013 – The Isle of Wight Council awards Ecoisland £250,974 in funding from central government to promote the Green Deal energy efficiency initiative February 2013 – Creditsafe judges Ecoisland "creditworthy" again March 2013 – The Community Interest Company Regulator receives a complaint about the £61,000 salary and £5,000 expenses Ecoisland paid to David Green through his consultancy. It "has no problem" with directors being well paid. April 2013 – A second complaint to the regulator draws attention to "irregularities" in the accounts of David Green's consultancy 3 Greenlights and "aggressive marketing methods" by Ecoisland Partnership. The regulator refers the complaint to Companies House and undertakes to "closely monitor" the company. October 2012 – The Isle of Wight hosts the first Ecoislands Global Summit. John Hayes MP, then energy minister, turns up in a hydrogen-powered car to give the keynote address. He says: "The Isle of Wight is the birthplace of the Ecoislands concept and I am proud that it has taken the lead in this major new international movement." Countdown to disaster