Neil Marshall, chief executive of the National Insulation Association (NIA), has commented on the Committee on Climate Change’s (CCC) recently published ‘Meeting Carbon Budgets Annual Progress Report’, and the Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation (ECO) statistics, which were published by DECC at the end of June.

Mr Marshall said: “There are 5m cavities, 7m solid walls and over 7m lofts that still need insulating and the Committee on Climate Change has stressed the need to maintain and increase the pace of insulation installations to meet the Carbon Budgets.

“Based on 2012 levels, this would require some 600,000 cavities, 1.2m lofts and over 80,000 solid walls to be insulated each year – which is achievable and would require levels of activity built up over many years to be maintained.”

The NIA is supportive of the Green Deal and ECO, and the association and its members are undertaking a wide range of activities to stimulate activity. However, according to the NIA the Green Deal and ECO have been slower to get off the ground than anticipated and the statistics show that there has been a very significant reduction in installations across all insulation measures in 2013. Over the first four months, ECO has delivered at a rate equivalent to just 80,000 cavity, 136,000 loft and5,000 solid wall installations per annum.

Therefore, the NIA is calling for more to be done if the insulation levels suggested by the CCC are to be achieved.

The NIA and its members are keen to work with government and other stakeholders in accelerating the pace of insulation delivery and maximising the success of the Green Deal and ECO, and to this end would like to see a number of further actions taken:

  • The development of a robust, sustainable delivery plan for insulating the remaining housing stock to include the introduction of annual targets for individual insulation measures and regular reporting against these to enable any slippage to be identified and acted upon
  • The introduction of additional incentives and, where necessary, further regulation to minimise the delivery risks for insulation measures under the new policy framework that have been identified by the CCC
  • A high-profile, government-backed national communication programme to increase awareness and understanding of the Green Deal and ECO amongst the general public
  • Simplification of the processes and requirements in the ECO to remove blockers
  • Adjustments to the Green Deal Cashback Scheme to enable Green Deal Accredited installers to access the scheme directly in order to stimulate greater uptake, make it easier for households to access and allow SMEs to participate more effectively.