Campaign aims to champion energy efficiency

Improving the energy efficiency of homes across the country is at the heart of a new national campaign aimed at raising awareness about how households can take action to reduce energy bills.

The campaign, called the Big Energy Vision, has been a launched by a wide range of businesses and organisations, including contractor Willmott Dixon, the UK Green Building Council, retailers Kingfisher and B&Q, and the government-backed quality mark for tradesmen Trustmark.

It is being coordinated by not-for-profit organisations Forum for the Future and Behaviour Change and aims to empower UK households to take control of rising energy bills.

The campaign follows research, undertaken by pollster YouGov, that found energy bills are the top financial concern for households and that two thirds of people feel that there’s very little or nothing they can do about them.

The survey found 32% of respondents put energy bills as their number one concern when it came to household spending, followed by mortgage/rent (15%).

The survey also found that 66% of respondents thought they could do “not very much” or “nothing at all” about the cost of their energy bills.

In response, the campaign aims to inform the public about ways to reduce their energy bills, focusing on measures that can be taken to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, either through retrofit work on installing more efficient appliances as well as guidance on switching to cheaper tariffs.

Sir Ian Cheshire, Kingfisher group chief executive, said: “Now is the time to take control of rising home energy costs. We need to move from a place where people are frustrated about their bills and feel there’s nothing they can do, to one where they feel that help is available to stop wasting energy and control their bills.

“We’re committing to a bold vision, working collaboratively to make it easier for everyone to use less, waste less and pay less for their energy.”