About a year ago when we moved into our first office, we signed up with Green Energy UK on a 100% green tariff and felt really great about ourselves.
In the intervening period I spoke to an energy trader who told me that my conscience-saving move was no more than that : something to make me feel better about myself.
The disappointing truth about the vast majority of green energy suppliers, or green tariffs you can get from the big names, is that the government forces energy companies to buy 10% of their energy from renewable resources anyway. What a lot of “green tariffs” are doing therefore, is selling green electricity that the energy company would have had to buy anyway, at a higher price to conscientious/gullible individuals. The impact on energy markets of the consumers’ choice is exactly zero.
Green Energy UK are not quite as bad as all that. The worst you can buy from them is a 10% tariff (i.e. matching their legal requirements) so the fact that we were on a 100% tariff presumably means they were having to buy additional green electricity on top of their mandatory 10%.
But fear not, don’t go and burn your insulation or smash your double glazing yet at the futility of it all… into this quagmire of deceit and green wash rides the white knight of energy suppliers, Good Energy.
Good Energy only supply 100% green tariffs. All of a sudden your consumer power means something - every watt of greener than green electricity you buy from Good Energy is purchased on the energy markets and really does make a difference.
It may be argued that getting a 100% tariff from either Green Energy UK or Good Energy has the same effect, but when we moved office this time around we decided to choose a company that puts its money where its values are and doesn’t offer a soft option.
And yes, we’re feeling really great about ourselves again.