In focus
Green Deal 1/4
Is the
Green Deal
a fair deal
for SMEs?
The Green Deal is widely accepted as a progressive idea in principle. But, says Conor McGlone, criticism that the way the
scheme has been designed could exclude small and medium sized businesses is damaging its credibility
Finally launched in January, the
Government's highly anticipated retrofit
energy-efficiency scheme has been positioned as a key mechanism in reaching
its target of reducing UK greenhouse gas
emissions by 80% by 2050. However,
already the scheme has been mired in
accusations that it has been under-publicised, the interest rates are far too high
and the process is overly complex, par-
ticularly for SMEs.
There are three stages to the Green
Deal mechanism – initially, a Green Deal
assessor visits customers to undertake
an assessment of the property and make
