Are you willing to pay the price for going green?

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Going green used to be presented as a way of saving money, but the stark reality that dealing with climate change will mean us spending more is dawning.

The carrot of £5,000 grants to help people ditch gas boilers and install air source heat pumps or other more eco-friendly heating was dangled by the Prime Minister this week.

There was a hefty caveat though, there is only enough cash for 90,000 being made available and it seems like the rest who want to get greener heating will need to foot hefty bills themselves.

People can stall but eventually the stick will come, with banks encouraged to only give the best mortgage rates to those with efficient homes.

Likewise, another carrot was dangled in the form of green savings bonds from NS&I, so savers could put their money to work helping the nation’s green projects.

Once more, there is a big caveat: the rate on the three-year bonds is a measly 0.65 per cent. That compares to the best standard three-year savings fix of 1.81 per cent.

Maybe Kermit was right, it’s not easy being green.

But will our good intentions overcome the higher costs and lower returns and people be willing to pay the price for going green?

On this week’s podcast, Georgie Frost, Lee Boyce and Simon Lambert, discuss green bonds and better alternatives and greener homes, their costs and whether there is also better options that we are being presented with right now.

Plus, we had closure on the axing of the triple lock this week, with an inflation figure that set the next state pension increase, and bitcoin hit a record high.

And finally, Lee explains the This is Money headline of the week: ‘I fished my daughter's third birthday present out of a skip’

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to This Is Money Podcasts. I'm Georgie for us stand alongside me and editor Simon Lambert Day is assistant editor Lee Boyce. And coming up, this week Boris Johnson unveiled his plans for turning Britain green by 2050. What's in the net zero strategy and who will foot the bill to make our homes, our cars and our lives more eco-friendly? Gas boil spoilers are out, heat pumps are in, but does the
0:22.5	£5,000 grant go far enough? And what even are they? Also, under green mortgages, or some
0:28.0	struggle to sell their homes, while others will have to fork out thousands of pounds. Plus,
0:32.9	we reveal the rate on NS&I Green savings bond. Don't get too excited, by the way. Spoiler alert.
0:39.8	How much the state pension is to go up by Sons Triple Lock? Again, probably don't get too
0:45.1	excited by that either. And we ask, is Bitcoin back? Don't forget you're upstate with all the latest
0:51.0	breaking money news. Just go to this ismoney.com.com.uk
0:54.6	or download the app.
0:55.8	But first, you never guess a major climate conference is taking place in the UK in a couple of weeks.
1:01.1	The government has got the big green market pen out and released a number of policies designed
1:05.1	to help in the fight against climate change, much of the focus on our homes.
1:10.1	So what are the plans and how will they affect us,
1:12.5	who will pay for it, etc? But first, as part of all of that, green savings bonds from NS and I, Lee,
1:21.4	you were not here last week, but we touched on that. They were announced, I believe, in the March
1:27.3	budget, world first. We've been waiting
1:31.7	with anticipation, the anticipation as to what the rate of interest will be. We have the
1:39.7	news, hot off the press. Lee, are you excited?
1:48.2	Georgie, these bonds are green, but they're lean and mean,
1:49.8	unfortunately, in terms of the rate.
1:54.0	0.65% over a three-year fix is not going to get pulses racing.
1:56.4	I don't think it's going to really attract
1:58.3	the £15 billion that they're thinking this might
	...

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