UK giant firms to use green technology to overhaul homes

Some of the UK’s leading companies are partnering with top educational institutions to develop schemes that will revamp household energy, transport, water and waste provision to radically cut carbon gas emissions.

The pioneering partnership is to be led by Peter Head, Arup’s global planning chief, and will involve 25 international firms, including GE – which according to Forbes the world’s largest company. Huge companies like HSBC, EDF, Thames Water, Marks & Spencer and Biffa will also take part in the plan.

Politicians and regulators hope that the project, tagged as the ‘green new deal’, would help boost the nation’s economy out of the global recession. Alistair Darling earlier said that green projects alone could generate an additional half a million jobs in the next decade.

The companies involved in the scheme expect that their work could create thousands of green jobs in five years and could push UK into the forefront of environmental technology. Currently, they are working with University College London and Imperial College to retrofit homes by using the newest available clean technologies.

Head, the future chairman of the new charity Thames Gateway Institute of Sustainability, said that retrofitting is the main focus of the institute. As part of Thames Gateway’s sustainable technology business park, the charity plans to open this year a research facility in Dagenham. The new centre will conduct several researches on green technologies that can be cost-effectively upgraded to industrial proportions.

A part of the project is also to create funds for green schemes. Currently, the group is in talks with banks to obtain financial support to carry out the plans.