Date: 10-Feb-10
Country: UK
Author: Nao Nakanishi
LONDON - Britain has launched a scheme to certify and label electricity produced by green means so as to help consumers and small businesses choose tariffs to support suppliers doing more to cut carbon emissions than obliged.
Britain's energy regulator OFGEM said Tuesday green energy suppliers needed to show an independent panel they were carrying out an additional activity to source for more renewable electricity and to reduce household carbon emissions.
"Only two per cent of Britons currently buy green energy, but I hope that a trustworthy label will convince many more to go green," Solitaire Townsend, a leading sustainable development expert who chairs the panel, said in a statement.
The panel had now assessed tariffs from seven participants in the scheme, including British Gas, E.ON , EDF Energy, RWE npower, Scottishpower, Scottish and Southern Energy and Good Energy.
"Green tariffs have been a swamp of misleading and confusing claims," said Keith Allott, head of climate change at WWF-UK.
"We hope that the new guidelines and certification scheme will...begin to give consumers some assurance that by choosing a green tariff they are making a difference," Allott said.
(Editing by James Jukwey)
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