Well known high-street names Marks & Spencer, Tesco, HSBC and Kingfisher who own B&Q have been asked to help advise the government on energy efficiency, cutting emissions and saving money. The companies have been give a special role in advising and helping ministers to reduce energy usage across government departments in order to meet their target of reducing consumption by 10 per cent.

Heeding advice from these retail giants, government departments will begin to initiate the introduction of a range of measures ranging from automatic lighting using motion sensors to avoid lights being left on in empty offices to competitions between departments and even motivational lectures to guide staff on a more energy efficient lifestyle.

These new steps are seen as another one of the coalition government’s green policies but Climate Minister Greg Barker stated that saving money is where the true focus lies:

"If you get them by the finances, the hearts and minds will follow,"

"There's an absolute imperative in making sure these savings come from energy bills and not from elsewhere; so that really focuses minds,"

In the long term, the government aims to continue reductions in energy usage to level so low that eventually they could generate more power than they use through sources of renewable energy on its buildings and land. The plans to cut the government’s energy usage were introduced by David Cameron just 3 days into his term as Prime Minister and the retailers were drafted in as part of the cross-government committee also made up of 19 central departments.

Author:  Thomas Davies

Mail to a friend  |   Print this news  |  Contact Us  |  About Us

Publish our Green issues articles on your own site!

All our Green issues articles are available for republishing, provided the links in the content remain intact. You can also use our RSS news feed to republish all of our Green issues articles.