Going Green

UK consumers are becoming increasingly aware and concerned about environmental and ethical issues. Consumers are now spending over £29 billion each year on ethical goods, such as organic or fair-trade food, environmentally friendly transport, ethical clothing, and ethical banking. However, only 0.2 per cent of this spend is on green energy, and only one per cent of energy consumers in Great Britain are signed up to a green or carbon offset tariff.

Consumer confusion may be one reason for the lack of take up of green tariffs. Unless consumers start producing their own energy using solar panels, wind turbines or the like, it is difficult to see how they can go green. Consumers still need to get their energy from a supplier and that will need to come via their existing pipes and wires. Gas can’t be green because it comes from fossil fuel and, any electricity produced from a renewable source, is not guaranteed to get into your home as it goes into the mix of electricity from nuclear and fossil fuels.

So, at the moment, opting for a green tariff tends to mean one of three things:

‘Green’ source electricity – this is where an energy supplier will guarantee to buy, from a renewable generator, a percentage of electricity to match every unit of electricity used by the consumer.

‘Green’ fund – these tariffs are designed to support the construction of new renewable sources of electricity generation, environmental causes or new research and development projects.

Carbon offset – these tariffs help reduce or offset the carbon dioxide emissions or ‘carbon footprint’ produced by an average household, for example, by planting trees.

But the information provided by suppliers about these different tariffs is not always transparent and consumers are unclear of the environmental benefits that they deliver, or indeed, how they add to the renewable energy that suppliers are obliged to supply by law. In addition, there is no scheme in place to verify suppliers’ claims about the environmental benefits or “greenness” of their tariffs.

energywatch wants clear and standard information provided to consumers about different types of green tariff. This should be accompanied by the development of an independent verification scheme for green tariffs. A verification scheme would validate the environmental claims made by suppliers, and provide consumers with the confidence to make informed choices about the green tariffs on offer. energywatch are currently campaigning for the Government and Industry to develop a scheme.

To help consumers who want to sign up to a green tariff now, energywatch has produced a consumer’s guide to green tariffs.

The consumer’s guide provides the background details of all green tariffs to help you make up your mind about the tariff that’s right for you. energywatch’s guide focuses on the tariff details, although we have provided links to company websites or environmental reports if you want more information about the companies’ wider investment or business policies.

If you’re inspired by our consumer guide and want to switch to a green tariff we’ve provided links to all the switching sites to help you make the move.