Just 7% of homeowners with a gas boiler would seriously consider changing to a different energy source in the next three years, research by NatWest and IHS Markit has revealed.
The study, which comes amid the cost-of-living crisis and as consumers face soaring energy bills found cost remained the greatest barrier to homeowners improving the environmental sustainability of their property.
It also found that 33% of respondents were unlikely to make green home improvements due to the perceived disruption it would cause.
However, the Greener Homes Attitude Tracker, which quizzed 4,500 people across the UK at the end of last year, found there had been a positive change in attitudes towards green home improvements during that time.
NatWest said consumers were increasingly aware of the impact of their carbon footprint and 63% of homeowners were planning to make green home improvements in the next decade. This was up from 55% compared to earlier in the year.
Lloyd Cochrane, head of mortgages at NatWest said: “Our research shows that there is clearly a concern for consumers when making those greater green changes in the home, such as replacing gas boilers.
“With the cost of living increasing and more people working from home faced with rising energy bills, more needs to be done in raising awareness of what improving energy efficiency means for individual customers.
“We launched the Greener Homes Attitude Tracker to help us understand attitudes towards these issues and enable us to build the products, services and processes needed to play our part in tackling climate change and provide useful insight for all those involved in supporting the transition.”
Other findings included:
- One in five households were very concerned about the carbon emissions produced by homes in the UK
- Over half (55%) of homeowners have already made positive changes to the environmental sustainability of their property
- Around one-third (33%) of UK households that were looking to buy a property over the next decade believed the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of a property was a ‘very important’ factor
