Ethical and sustainable bank Triodos has reached the £500 million mark in lending..

Loans to customers include one of the UK’s first Community Land Trusts, High Bickington Community Trust, which enabled the bank to grow its UK lending by 26% over the course of 2010.

The loan book totalled £316 million by the end of January 2011 and commitments to lend now well over £200 million. Triodos also recently paid out £1.3 million to Yorkhill Housing, its first ever housing association loan in Scotland.

Triodos uses money saved by its customers to finance organisations that benefit people and the environment. Other recent customers to borrow from Triodos Bank include Michael Eavis’ Worthy Farm in Glastonbury to finance a 200kwp solar PV installation which will provide the dairy farm with the energy it requires, plus surplus to sell back to the grid under the government’s FIT scheme, Chest of Drawers, an award-winning independent furniture retailer in London, which uses only responsibly produced raw materials, and the Abbeyfield Kent Society which provides a home and support to more than 450 older people in Kent.

Dr Bevis Watts, head of business banking at Triodos said: “Despite the mainstream banks’ latest commitments as part of Project Merlin