Heat Scheme has secured major employers, including Schroders, Havas, UK Power Networks, Clear Bank, and NHS Professionals, for an employer-subsidised home heating benefit scheme.
Employees can benefit from one-on-one consultations for heating efficiency and home improvement, as well as interest-free loans or grants from employers to cover initial costs for green retrofits and heat pump installations.
The scheme allows each employer to decide how much they want to contribute towards subsidising home efficiency improvements for their employees.
Patrick Dougherty set up Heat Scheme with a government grant of £116,238. Homes account for 22 per cent of UK carbon emissions and Dougherty points out that heat pumps may reduce a home’s emissions by 80 per cent.
The scheme intends to increase clean energy use by more than 30 per cent.
Heat Scheme director and founder Patrick Dougherty says: “One of the reasons large famous employers – such as Havas, UK Power Networks, Clear Bank and NHS Professionals – have chosen to adopt Heat Scheme is the positive impact we can have on staff wellbeing at home.
“The advantages of working with employers are clear: they provide a platform to drive staff awareness and offer financing to help them cover the upfront cost of switching to clean energy.”
UK Power Networks head of environment and sustainability Mark Norman says: “UK Power Networks has set tough environmental, carbon and social targets across the business and as part of our vision statement aims to enable the Net Zero transition for all.
“It is critical that we also support our staff in their own decarbonisation journeys. A key area of action for the UK is to decarbonise our domestic housing, so we are very pleased to partner with Heat Scheme to assist our staff in improving the efficiency of their homes.”
Dougherty adds: “Unwittingly, staff are perpetuating future carbon emissions from their home every single week. This is because currently each year around 5-10 per cent of staff are replacing their gas boiler with another one, for the simple reason that the existing one has broken down.
“Each new gas boiler has a probable shelf level of 15 years and on the basis that a boiler for an averagely sized home emits around 2.3 tonnes of emissions each year, this means that 3,450 tonnes of carbon dioxide are locked in for each 1,000 staff each year by the simple action of replacing one gas boiler with a new one”