Cars and domestic appliances are rated on their energy performance but people and houses are not, so the team developed a rank and reward concept, as Jennie Winhall explains...
‘By explicitly comparing and rewarding different actions we could change the public’s perception of energy saving. It’s about motivating people to do something,’ says Winhall. Rank and reward includes a ‘virtual house’ where you can drag and drop energy-saving measures onto a model of your own home on a PC, to predict how much you could improve your energy rating. It would enable you to compare your running costs after you’ve added a wind turbine, say, or let you see what difference loft insulation could make to your C02 emissions.
And using a labeling system like that used on fridges, the team proposed that energy ratings of homes could be publicly displayed on for-sale signs, in estate agents' windows and on maps on home-buying websites. ‘Soon houses on the market will be rated as part of the new Home Information Pack but there is still no incentive to take action,’ says Winhall. ‘If mortgage lenders required borrowers to improve their house's energy rating, energy performance and running costs would be higher on home-improvers' agendas. We could create a situation where it is socially desirable to show that you have a low-energy house.’
To ensure that householders think about the future, the team also came up with the idea of a ‘Power Pension’ that lets you invest in your own future – and the planet’s at the same time. For every energy-saving improvement you make to your home, credits would be added to your power pension account and it would pay out in heat, light and power when it matures.
