Enforcement Legislation
Monitoring and enforcement of consumer legislation
As part of the announcement of the UK entering the “Green Industrial Revolution”, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson also announced his ‘Ten Point Plan’ which sets out the approach government will take to improve the UK housing stock, support green jobs, and accelerate the UK’s path to Net Zero.
Policy makers need to engage with at least 22m (UK) owner occupiers whose decisions are key to progress towards retrofitting. While consumers are sympathetic to the zero-carbon agenda many either have other priorities e.g. a new kitchen or lack the motivation or the funds for improvements that can be disruptive to install or have very long payback periods.
Under an number of new Government Grants the corresponding measures must be installed by a TrustMark Registered Business, providing a significant reassurance of the competence of installers, who have to be registered to the relevant standards (e.g. PAS 2030). In addition, consumers need protection against installations that are not fit for purpose, are unsafe, or non-compliant with regulations. Complaints must be taken seriously and fair redress schemes must be available and easy to access.
The NCF Plan and Approach
It is key that NCF and it’s stakeholders, partners and influencers need to help consumers understand their role in achieving the UK’s 2050 net zero targets.
To start, it is clear that their simple and effective information needs to be available that takes a consumer on the journey to understanding what Net Zero is, and how they can get involved.
As a consumer protection not-for-profit organisation it is our duty to ensure consumers are confident that their interests will be protected when engaging and appointing trades to retrofitting their home.
The priority is to act to drive conversations within industry, retailers and manufacturers and present evidence to government that more needs to be done to drive consumer adoption whilst ensuring they are protected.
Plan
NCF and it’s partners are working to develop a consumer facing document that improves awareness, details relevant and valuable information and links, provides clear guidelines on what to do and where to go if things go wrong, and finally to use to lobby government to do more to protect consumers from scammers and poor workmanship.
Discuss
Once the initial document has been developed it will be shared with the relevant interested parties to create a education plan that can be adopted by industry and relevant industry organisations. This will result in organising our 2021 Net Zero Congress later in the year.
Persuade
Partnering with key industry and retail organisations, NCF look to drive the key objectives and outcomes from the report, to create greater noise on where to go for further information on Net Zero and what this means for consumers homes. These will be aligned with what “triggers” consumers to update or improve their homes.
Our Partners and Sponsors for this Theme
Further information and relevant links
Website Links
TrustMark is the Government Endorsed Quality Scheme covering work a consumer chooses to have carried out in or around their home.
Click Here to visit their website: www.trustmark.org.uk
BEIS (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy) is responsible for a number of UK Government policy areas such as business and industrial strategy, science, innovation, energy and climate change.
To visit their website, click here.
Energy Saving Trust is an independent organisation – working to address the climate emergency.
To visit their website, click here.
The law protects your consumer rights when you buy goods or services. Find out who to contact for consumer protection advice.
You can get help if you’re treated unfairly or when things go wrong.
To visit their website, click here.
Friends Against Scams is a National Trading Standards Scams Team initiative which aims to protect and prevent people from becoming victims of scams by empowering people to take a stand against scams.
To visit their website, click here.
The planet is in crisis – from climate change to the pollution in our oceans and devastation of our forests. It’s up to all of us to fix it. Take your first step with our environmental footprint calculator.
To take the WWF questionnaire, click here.
Third Party Documents
For the full report, click here.
For the full report, click here.
For the full report, click here.
For the full document, click here.
For the full document, click here.
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