Kate Griffin freelance journalism and editing

The current government promised to be the “greenest government ever”, but the UK’s carbon emissions are still too high, risking catastrophic climate change. However, many people don’t realise that 80% of emissions are as a result of local activity. We talk a lot about government action, but it’s time to bring the discussion closer to home.

By now, EPCs (Energy Performance Certificates) are a familiar part of the rental process. They were introduced by the Labour government as part of HIPs (Home Information Packs), which were criticised for introducing unnecessary bureaucracy to the property sector. Since EPCs came into force in 2008, we’ve become used to arranging energy performance assessments and adding them to the particulars of rental properties.

I've written a short post for the Sustainable Witney blog about switching to greener energy. Writing it took me about ten minutes; switching my household's electricity and gas to Ecotricity took about five minutes.