|
ARE YOU A LOCAL HERO?
POSTCODE ACTIVISM COMMUNITIES ARE UNITING IN A BID TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE AND SAVE CASH, WRITES FIONA MACDONALD
The meerkat –symbol of Neighbourhood Watch organisations – can rest easier, for its community spirit is also helping to save the world.
At the end of last year, the Energy Saving Trust focused on the power of conversation to tackle climate change and, it seems, postcode responsibility has overtaken individual action as the eco-warrior`s weapon of choice.
In January, British Gas launched its Green Streets campaign, monitoring eight groups of households across Britain as they cut energy consumption. And earlier this month, environment secretary Hilary Benn announced a Green Neighbourhoods initiative, offering a makeover to up to 100 communities that could reduce their carbon footprints by more than 60 per cent.
To receive funding, groups will need to commit their own resources to give their street or local area a green sheen. The government will contribute more than £10 million over three years to add to other sources of funding that bidders can access, such as through fuel poverty programmes, energy companies or private sponsorship. The first projects will be funded from next April.
Benn said: “The changes each of us can make in our own lives can have a big knock –on effect- on the lives of our friends and neighbours, on our community, on the companies that make and buy the products we sell at home and abroad”.
Cutting energy use
It`s strange that an energy company should pre-empt government policy yet suppliers such as British Gas are being forced to change precisely because of those policies. As he Green Neighbourhoods, Benn also detailed a new obligation for suppliers that came into force on April 1. The Carbon Emissions Reduction Target doubles previous requirements on utilities to help customers make their homes more energy-efficient and reduce household emissions.
“In many ways CERT is business as usual for us, except with a vengeance”, says Gearoid Lane, MD of British Gas New Energy. “It`s a matter of upping the pace and trying to do even more of what we have been doing. “That has ranged from cavity wall and loft insulation to the launch of the Standby Saver, allowing users to switch off multiple appliances with one button. Yet Lane accepts that asking an energy company to help its customers cut energy use is not without contradictions.
“Obviously, the greater the energy efficiency, the lower the amount of consumption”, he says. “But it`s something customers want and we are a natural delivery engine for it. We have 9,000 service engineers out there every day in customers” homes and, often, it`s when we`re installing new boilers that people pause to think about energy efficiency.”
Staff are therefore being trained to deal with carbon issues, while a boiler using fuel cell technology is under development with Ceres Power.
An inclusive service
Yet, according to Lane, it`s impossible for the supplier to abandon its core product. “Our heritage is as a gas company, although we supply a lot of electricity and servicing as well. But we can`t just rip out 19 million boilers and put in something different in one fell swoop, so natural gas will be at the heart of Britain`s domestic energy use for a long time. For that reason the big focus is on energy efficiency”.
Lane envisages a new outlook. “We might see an inclusive service from energy companies, offering the whole package from efficiency to microgeneration and helping customers move to low-carbon homes.”
More efficient
Green Streets is a part of that. “It is the kind of thing we may look at doing more of, “says Lane. “Insulation and energy efficiency are not always front of mind for customers, so this element of competition –pitting town against town and street against street – helps to engage interest.”
He also believes Defra`s Green Neighbourhoods scheme could offer a useful example. “One of the aspects that will be interesting is the idea of concentrating on hard-to-treat homes such as Victorian terraces and poorly insulated tower blocks – places with solid walls and no loft spaces, many of which are pretty bad in terms of their energy efficiency”.
For the time being al least, then, energy policy appears to be in the hands of the Smiths next-door-but-one as much as the Browns at Number 10.
ECO SAINTS AND SINNERS OF THE WEEK
MPs return from their Easter break today, so in a twist on Saints and Sinners, we`re asking whether they will be donning halos or horns in the coming months. The I Count campaign has issued a viral film about the Climate Bill, which is set to become law this summer. Narrated by Gavin & Stacey`s Mathew Horne, the clip is called.
This Bill`s Got No Balls ( www.icount.org.uk/billsballs ) –no guessing at its message, then.
It`s a sentiment shared by Friends of the Earth, which is holding a public meeting in London tomorrow night where environment secretary Hilary Benn and his Conservative and Lib Dem counterparts will debate the new law. Activists are calling for tougher measures, such as a target for cutting emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 (it`s currently set at 60 per cent) and including emissions from aviation and shipping. Even if you don`t live in London , you can influence the debate: e-mail green@ukmetro.co.uk and we`ll submit the best questions to the panellists at the meeting tomorrow. www.foe.co.uk
• To see the panel`s answers to your questions from Wednesday visit www.metro.co.uk/climatewatch
GREENMETRO
www.metro.co.uk |
