黑洞社区

The Green Deal

With the announcement that the government is ditching funding for the Green Deal, we take a look back to 2013, when the scheme was officially launched. For the first time, the plan was to meet energy efficiency goals by creating a self-sustaining market, which then energy minister Greg Barker claimed to be 鈥渢he most innovative thing in the energy efficiency space ever tried by government鈥�.

Many in construction were less excited about the scheme, typified when sustainability consultant David Strong said: 鈥淎t the moment economic growth and stimulating the economy seems to be the government鈥檚 priority and not the grandstanding claims to be the greenest government ever.鈥�

黑洞社区 reporter Vern Pitt highlighted the lack of long-term incentives for the scheme, which he believed would ultimately make the deal hard to sell. This absence of forethought, he wrote, meant: 鈥淭he Green Deal appears much more of an after thought to a traditional subsidy scheme rather than the 鈥榯ransformative鈥� programme the government has billed it as.鈥�