Commercial green deal delayed
Related Topics
Related tags
- Business & Industry ,
- Management ,
- Procurement ,
- Management/saving ,
- EMS
Author
Companies hoping to take advantage of the green deal to finance energy-efficiency measures will not be able to apply for funding when the scheme launches this autumn
Despite being consistently labelled as an initiative to help both businesses and homeowners, DECC has now confirmed the commercial side of the green deal will not roll out alongside the domestic scheme due to start in October.
A DECC representative told the environmentalist the delay was to allow regulators and firms offering green deal services time to address additional complexities thrown up by applying the scheme to commercial properties, for example where a business is billed for multiple sites, but only improves one.
“We want to make sure that when we launch something it is right and it’s ready to be used,” said the spokesperson.
While agreeing that holding off until there is clarity is sensible, Tom Nolan from the British Chamber of Commerce said that the delay could have been avoided. “If DECC had put the same amount of thought into how to apply the scheme for businesses as [it] did for households, then they would be in a position to launch it,” he said.
According to Nolan, the delay highlights a bigger issue of how the government is communicating the scheme.
“The number of firms that know about the green deal and what it offers them is very low. The government has a huge task ahead to raise awareness, because it’s the best policy measure out there to help small and medium-sized firms improve their energy efficiency.”
The postponement will affect medium-sized firms most, as small firms operating from homes will qualify for the domestic scheme. DECC is yet to confirm the length of the delay, but states the commercial green deal will start soon after the homeowner scheme.
Transform articles
Local authorities could have saved Green Homes Grant
The Green Homes Grant is set to deliver only a fraction of the jobs and improvements intended, leading to calls for more involvement from local authorities in future schemes.
COVID-19 recovery packages have largely focused on protecting, rather than transforming, existing industries, and have been a “lost opportunity” for speeding up the global energy transition.
None of England’s water and sewerage companies achieved all environmental expectations for the period 2015 to 2020, the Environment Agency has revealed. These targets included the reduction of total pollution incidents by at least one-third compared with 2012, and for incident self-reporting to be at least 75%.
The UK’s pipeline for renewable energy projects could mitigate 90% of job losses caused by COVID-19 and help deliver the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda. That is according to a recent report from consultancy EY-Parthenon, which outlines how the UK’s £108bn “visible pipeline” of investible renewable energy projects could create 625,000 jobs.
Billions of people worldwide have been unable to access safe drinking water and sanitation in their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a progress report from the World Health Organisation focusing on the UN’s sixth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6) – to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030”.
The oil and gas industry is set to burn through its allocated carbon budget 13 years early unless decisive action is taken immediately, new analysis has found.
The UK will no longer use unabated coal to generate electricity from October 2024, one year earlier than originally planned, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has announced.
The UK government is not on track to deliver on its promise to improve the environment within a generation and is failing to stem the tide of biodiversity loss, a damning new report from MPs has revealed.
Renewable energy will account for nearly 40% of the world's power mix by the end of this decade, overtaking coal within the next few years, according to research by GlobalData.
