Climate change plans and the search for installers

The British Government published its UK Low Carbon Transition Plan last week for moving the UK to a low carbon economy. It looks at how to transform our power; homes and communities; workplaces and jobs; transport; farming and waste. A key aspect of this is the creation of more than 1.2 million "green jobs". This would seem to be good news for us all in this time of recession especially for smaller and more remote communities where opportunities can be limited.

Unfortunately the current system means it is unlikely any small businesses in rural communities will have a look in:

I've been searching for installers who can give me quotes for doing loft insulation work on a couple of properties on Skye. It is easy to find the correct website for the list of the 'accredited installers' but that is about as easy as it gets. If you want to get someone who is local then it seems that central Scotland is about local as it gets. A survey is needed by most in order to get a quote. That is a round trip of some 400 miles, just for a quote, before any work starts...

If you want to use a local skilled tradesperson then there is no subsidy or grant available unless they are accredited. To become accredited costs several thousand pounds. It is an onerous prospect for a small outfit, involving a considerable amount of time and it is unlikely there will be any financial return as you are then competing against the 'big boys' who can buy in bulk and provided the economies of scale. The accredited installers are all part of large companies and they can afford to go through the accreditation process.

So, in trying to reduce the carbon footprint of a building, more road miles are expended than would seem necessary as there is an 'accreditation' box to be ticked. The system is apparently in place to provide quality control. Surely that is more easily monitored if the person who did the job lives locally and you can call them back if anything needs sorted?

At a workshop on retro-fitting ( i.e. insulating existing properties rather than new build) at the recent Comrie Climate Challenge Conference one of the attendees expressed his frustration at his attempts to establish a small sustainable business using sheep's wool for insulation. The carbon footprint of this is considerably lower than the glass wool fibre and mineral wool fibre and would seem to offer opportunities for wool in an otherwise difficult market but the funding is not there to support it and as far as I can work out no-one using this material is on the accreditated list. This method is particularly good for older stone properties as it has high breathability and is a good way to use up poorer quality wool.

It would seem the time is right to ask for changes to be made. Much of the regulation is governed by OFGEM. We need to think long term so that how and what is delivered by way of energy efficiency measures really starts to support local sustainability and a low carbon future. Wouldn't it be great if the actual costs of producing something in carbon terms ( the embodied carbon) was considered as well as the cost in pounds. Then the logic of using local people and local produce would become sensible rather than cheapness being the main factor.