Government’s October 2021 Announcements

The UK Government has set-out its strategic vision for how the economy can decarbonise over the next 30 years at the same time as bolstering the UK’s competitiveness and ensuring the costs of the transition are fairly shared. Alongside it has published the long-awaited Heat and Buildings Strategy and new standards for environmental reporting designed to weed out greenwashing.  We’ve responded to the announcements as follows:

“While this week’s announcements set the long-term direction needed to meet the UK’s net zero commitments, we need to urgently move from ambition to action to avert climate breakdown. 

“The Government continues to reinforce the critical role of green finance, including lenders such as Ecology, to support the transition to a low carbon economy. There is an opportunity for more lenders to support green home improvements, but we need a coordinated approach, to determine the right energy efficiency measures for each home, together with grants and incentives, especially for difficult to treat properties.

“The backing for heat pumps to decarbonise our homes’ heating is positive.  However, installing heat pumps must go hand in hand with good levels of insulation and ventilation, to create low carbon, healthy homes. This was a missed opportunity to deliver a co-ordinated National Retrofit Programme addressing the fragmented energy efficiency supply chain and skills shortages, which is urgently needed to kickstart the retrofit revolution required to make all our homes fit for the future.

“Finally, we hope that the focus on sustainability reporting standards will reduce the risk of greenwash and, in due course, result in the further growth of green mortgages which genuinely help us reach the Government’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050.”

For more information about the Net-Zero Strategy.

For more information about the Heat and Buildings Strategy.

For more information about the Green Finance Roadmap which sets out the new sustainability reporting standards.