Garden Office Blog

Eco home plan could change the green game

By Steven Willis on 24th March, 2010

The news this week that Glasgow Housing Association's eco home pilot scheme was aiming to create houses with running costs (heating and hot water) of just £2 per week raised an interesting question over the future of environmentally friendly consumerism.

Environmentally-friendly technology and products - whether it's micro-renewable installations on a home, eco cars or even a green energy tariff from an energy supplier - have traditionally carried a premium price tag over their less than green alternatives. This fact, largely due to basic economies of scale, has led to green items being perhaps unfairly considered by the general consumer as prohibitively expensive. The benefits, whether for the planet or eventually financial, sometimes aren't enough to convince buyers to pay more.

The news coming out of Glasgow underlines the incredible potential cost benefits that eco technologies can deliver to an economically and socially deprived audience, which ironically is an audience that has to date been overlooked by the eco market.

Provided the development costs of the Glasgow scheme don't turn out to be prohibitive, then the programme could prove to be the turning point where eco technologies finally move away from being an exclusive preserve of the financially secure, into a more socially encompassing and widely beneficial future.


Category:  Company Updates

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