Green homes: 'Householders can borrow up to £10,000'

Homeowners will be able to borrow up to £10,000 to "green" their homes and pay the money back through their council tax bill, under radical proposals drawn up by a government advisory body.

The plans, published today in a report by the UK Green Building Council, flesh out a government proposal aired last month for a pay-as-you-save scheme to improve the efficiency of 7m British homes by 2020.

Britain's housing stock is old and notoriously inefficient in its use of energy.

Housing accounts for a quarter of all carbon emissions but the upfront cost of improvements such as solid-wall insulation, low energy boilers and solar panels has been identified as a big barrier to reducing emissions – something the pay-as-you-save scheme aims to address.

The idea is that a homeowner would save more in energy bills than he or she would pay each month to service the loan taken out to green the home. Councils would be used as a conduit for the finance – which would come from banks or pensions funds, or even from a type of "green bond".

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SOURCE : guardian.co.uk