Home » Vision, History & Team
The Hub’s History
Where it started (2021)
In 2021, West Cumbria was facing a new coal mine and there was no credible plan for what else the region could do. Ciara Shannon and Prof. Nick Robins (LSE) joined up and set out to provide one.
With support from the Quadrature Climate Foundation, they co-founded the Green Investment Plan for Cumbria, showing how the county could become climate-positive through innovative finance and net-zero projects rooted in local needs.
Built together
The Plan was created with local and national partners including Future Proof Cumbria, ARUP, Energy4All, CLEP, Eftec, Cumbria Wildlife Trust, the Lake District National Park, Abundance Investment and the Green Finance Institute. It was chaired by Prof Nick Robins, led by Ciara and Arup helped us with our vision for Collette. The Green Investment Plan has since been downloaded thousands of times worldwide. It is a credible resource for place-based green finance.
The Hub is born (2022)
A plan only matters if something gets built. In 2022, Ciara founded the Green Finance Community Hub to turn the Plan’s boldest ideas into real projects. She was soon joined by Peter Head, then Ian Callaghan and later Bruce Davis. As part of the board, they bring deep expertise in infrastructure, net zero delivery and finance.
Collette’s incubation (2023 to 2025)
During this time, the Hub incubates Project Collette, a proposed 1.2GW community led offshore wind farm off the Cumbrian coast. The Hub has guided Collette through concept, feasibility, community engagement and financial models. It published and shared widely Collette’s Community Engagement report, Collette’s Community Investment Plan report (2024) and Energy Ownership for All, Project Collette’s Finance Guide (2025).
Central to our work was Collette’s Community Integrated Investment Model (CIIM) that can be adapted for other larger scale renewables.
A new national community finance strategy (2026 to 2028)
The Hub’s new strategy positions it as a national community finance intermediary and this includes designing community ownership models, open templates and research. The Hub also advises on investment-readiness, and aggregates projects so finance can flow locally.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Directors, Associates & Team
Our team brings experience from climate, community energy, finance, investment, policy, research, engineering and advocacy. We are united by our commitment to turning clean energy into common wealth, so that communities own, shape and benefit from the energy transition.
Peter joined as director at the start, and is a champion of sustainable development. He advocates that changing how we invest public and private money in the built environment could be much more effective if the public and private sectors adopt sustainable development principles. Peter is a civil and structural engineer. His work on the Dongtan Eco-city planning project was voted by Chinese developers in 2005 as the most influential development project in China. Peter has received many awards including the Award of Merit of IABSE, the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Silver Medal and the Prince Philip Award for Polymers in the Service of Mankind.
Ciara is the Hub’s Executive Director. Born and raised in Hong Kong, she now lives in Cumbria, where her family has a deep connection. Her sustainability career has taken her up the fell and far beyond, including recognition as an Outstanding Earth Champion for founding the Climate Change Business Forum. In 2021 she spearheaded the Green Investment Plan for Cumbria, and in 2022 she founded the Hub and led Project Collette, championing shared ownership and community benefit. She was previously Green Finance Lead at the North West Net Zero Hub.
Ian is an investment banker by background, has been involved in investing for social and environmental impact for more than 15 years and has specialised in climate finance since 2015. He is the originator of the Climate Finance Accelerator (CFA), a multi-million-pound capacity building programme funded by the UK government, and acts as adviser to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) on the operation of the programme in 9 larger emerging markets. He also remains active as an adviser and consultant in sustainable finance in various roles.
Bruce is a co-founder and Non-Executive Director of Abundance Investment, an FCA regulated crowdfunding platform focused on green investment. He is also Chair and Director of the UK Crowdfunding Association representing more than 20 regulated crowdfunding platforms. He provides advice and consultancy for community led finance organisations and is developing new models of community finance for biodiversity. He co-authored a book in “Crowdfunding and the democratisation of finance” (BUP 2021) and is a regular writer and speaker on green finance.
Mark is Investment Director at Orbital Marine Power and was previously Investments Director at Abundance Investment. He specialises in project finance, debt structuring and growth equity for renewable energy and clean tech. He has been working on Collette's Community Integrated Investment Model, its finance model and debt structuring.
Saskya Huggins is a community energy and community development adviser with more than 30 years’ experience working with charities, social enterprises and community-led organisations. She spent ten years at Low Carbon Hub, latterly as Social Impact Director, and is a Registered Community Shares Practitioner with extensive experience of community ownership, investment readiness and share offers. She supports community energy groups and other purpose-led organisations with governance, business planning, community investment, engagement and social impact. Saskya has been working on governance issues and community energy investment principles connected to Collette's Community Integrated Investment Model.
Kitty is a recent First-class criminology graduate from the University of Exeter. Her dissertation examined how UK onshore wind policy considered local communities and nature, giving her a strong grounding in energy policy and community impact. As an intern, she supports the Hub’s research and communications, and has been working on improving the website and on mapping potential investors for Project Collette.
Join Us
As the Hub grows into a national community finance intermediary, we’re expanding our Board, building a pool of associates and growing our delivery team.
Directors: we’re particularly keen to hear from people with experience in finance, fundraising or community energy who want to help shape the Hub’s strategy and safeguard its community purpose.
Associates: we’re looking for experienced professionals to deliver advisory work for councils, community groups and investors, on capital stack design, investment readiness and financial modelling.
Staff: we’re also looking for team members to help deliver the Hub’s work, and we’d be keen to hear from you if you have skills in fundraising, communications, investor engagement, research or clean tech.
If you’d like to help communities own their clean energy and natural assets, we’d love to hear from you.
