Sustainable Merton worked in partnership with the London Sustainability Exchange on a project to see how Merton residents could gain maximum benefit from all sorts of energy saving technologies.
One hundred households across the borough were visited by volunteer climate change champions who talked through appropriate home energy saving measures and their relative cost benefits, explaining government and local policies such as the Renewable Heat Incentive, Feed-in-Tariffs and the Green Deal.
The main results from the project showed that 75.9% of those surveyed were very conscious of energy saving and the three most important factors in energy use in the home are: cost, the environment and being comfortable. The survey also showed that very few people knew much about the Green Deal. The main barriers to reducing energy use were found to be: maintaining comfort, the cooperation of others and cost; the Green Deal will only help with the final point.
The survey established that Sustainable Merton has strong outreach to homeowners across the borough through its social networks. This will be vital in future for Sustainable Merton’s role in educating residents about behaviour change to reduce their energy use and facilitating access to schemes like the Green Deal.
The research should leave Merton well placed to make the most of the Green Deal, enabling households to reduce their energy consumption and make their homes warmer without any upfront costs.
You can find the full report from the project on the London Sustainability Exchange Energise Merton web page here.