Every British business will be under increasing pressure over the next decade to take measures to meet the Government's zero emission target in 2050, with the aim to slow down and reverse the effects of climate change. The IPG and its members will be staying alert and moving swiftly to ensure they are able to offer products that will meet the requirements of the installer and their clients, particularly in respect of heating our homes efficiently in the years ahead.
Earlier this year energy regulator Ofgem stated gas boilers will have to be ditched from all homes or upgraded by 2050 to meet government plans to cut the amount of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere. All new homes built after 2025 will have boilers installed with a green alternative to gas.
The IPG welcomes the Intergas statement that was released earlier this month by Stephen Zouch, Managing Director. Stephen said, “Intergas, is on a mission, to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and to support households using gas to heat their homes.”
In 2019 Intergas had already written about the urgency of taking action to combat climate change and how one 15-year-old schoolgirl was spearheading a youth revolution to shame governments into doing something. I’m not sure any of us realised just how successful Greta Thunberg would be but the rest, as they say, is history.
Following Greta’s lead, Extinction Rebellion, a global group of slightly older climate activists, have been protesting to compel the government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025 and to declare a climate emergency. On 1st May the UK Parliament declared a climate emergency. Later that month, the sensors at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, detected a concentration of CO2 that equalled the amount in the Earth’s atmosphere three million years ago, when trees grew at the South Pole, ‘Climate emergency’ sounds like the perfect way to describe the global environmental fix we’re in. But there’s more and it’s closer to home; in December A&E departments reported an increase in patients with acute respiratory infections and in babies with bronchitis. According to research by King’s College London, cutting air pollution by a fifth could result in almost 4,500 fewer children developing acute bronchitis every year.
It’s been clear to most of us for years that whatever we’ve been doing to reduce pollution, it’s not enough and, if we didn’t know it, Greta drew our attention to it. Now more than ever before, households, transport providers, businesses, and governments – need to be pushing ourselves and our organisations to help negate our own impact on the environment.
The IPG understands that the Independent heating and plumbing merchants will need to be at the forefront of this movement, ensuring that they use and are supported by suppliers who fully understand and embrace the changes that will happen in this marketplace and that manufacture the products with the technology that installers and the end user will demand to meet the government deadlines. David Cairns, Head of Supplier and Commercial for The IPG said; “This is where being a member of The IPG will benefit the independent, as we will ensure that we partner with companies that have a full understanding of the climate issues that the world and industry faces. And work with the suppliers who are developing their product range to meet government targets.”