The British Retail Consortium has said that people should not pay VAT on energy efficient household appliances
The BRC is calling for the government to offer incentives to encourage a switch to “greener” white goods – much like the car industry scrappage scheme
The BRC said research conducted on its behalf found such moves could cut CO2 emissions by 1.3 million tonnes a year and help support retail jobs.
It has asked the chancellor to include the proposals in his pre-Budget report.
Domestic emissions could be cut by 1% by 2020 if VAT was cut from the most energy efficient appliances, the BRC claimed.
Stephen Robertson, from the BRC, said helping people cut their energy bills by encouraging them to use greener products, would help the government move towards its targets for reducing carbon emissions.
“Retailers are already doing their bit to cut carbon but homes are responsible for 27% of the nation’s emissions,” he said.
“Helping householders improve their performance has to be the next step.”
No mention was made of making appliances more sustainable so that they last longer and remain in service which would be a more sensible strategy as figures have consistently, year on year, shown a drop in the life expectancy of appliances. Given the massive amount of carbon emissions generated through early failure in terms of production of replacement appliances as well as recycling old ones we would have thought this worthy of mention by the BRC.
It is hoped that government will also look at this area.