Net-zero: how business can drive consumer change

Achieving the UK’s stretching target on emissions and tackling climate change requires a massive shift in consumer behaviour. It will include changing the ways in which we all use transport and energy – so what role can business play in driving that and making that consumer journey an easy one?

Speaking at the CBI’s Low Carbon 2020s Conference, our panel of industry experts made these key points:

1 – Future energy consumers need more support

For energy consumers, the adjustments they need to make in how they heat their homes means they will need the support of the businesses they use. “When you look at the energy market today is it working for everyone?” said Gillian Cooper, Head of Energy Policy at Citizens Advice. “People find it too complex; engagement levels are low and there’s an affordability crisis. If we want a future market that works for all then we need to get the design process right and put the right consumer protections in place.”

Citizens Advice are asking businesses to help by making that consumer journey as seamless as possible. “The process of understanding options and choosing and buying products and services will be more difficult in the future,” said Cooper. “The future take-up of new products will be greater if the process is hassle-free and people know they’re not locked into a single provider forever.”

2 – Encourage the use of alternative transport

For a transport hub on the scale of Heathrow Airport with around 76,000 employees, encouraging them as well as passengers to use public transport is absolutely key. “We’ve made good progress on how people get to and from the airport,” said Matt Gorman, Director of Sustainability & Environment at Heathrow. “We’re encouraging people to get out of cars, particularly if they’re single occupancy.”

Around four in ten passengers are now using public transport and staff are incentivised to use public transport with free travel zones, subsidised train travel and one of the world’s biggest car-sharing schemes for employees.

3 - Driving demand for alternative transport

The demand for electric vehicles is steadily increasing, but barriers such as range anxiety and basic affordability still stand in place. “At Ford, we’re pursuing a twin-track approach for the vehicles we’re producing,” said Madeleine Hallward, Government Affairs Director at Ford of Britain. “We’ve been pioneering Ecoboost for several years now, which has given us a 15-20% reduction in carbon emissions from our combustion engines. We’re also investing $11bn into the electrification of our line-up – with the Transit PHEV hybrid-vehicle coming into market next year.”

In addition to the vehicles, Ford is also investing in the required infrastructure such as charging points as well as addressing other real, or perceived, barriers to the widespread adoption of zero-emission vehicles. “There is more that can be done on the part of government, business and consumers to both identify those barriers and overcome them,” said Hallward. “It’s not enough for the government to say, ‘build them and they will come,’ people need to be able to afford the new technology and they need to be certain they can get from point-A to point-B.”

4 – Reliability and affordability are vital

When it comes to public transport, the issue is not necessarily having the greener technology, it’s getting commuters to actually use it. “We have three huge points to address in order to make us the default choice,” said Stewart Fox-Mills, Commercial Director at public transport firm Abellio. “We’re definitely seen as not reliable enough; we’re seen as too hard to use – we have a ticketing system that hasn’t changed for a long time, so we need to digitise the customer experience. The final point that is value for money - there’s a perception that it’s cheaper to travel by car. Those are our key challenges for the organisation - we need to improve that public perception.”

5 – Make it easy for people

Driving awareness of some of the big changes coming is something Citizens Advice is acutely aware of. “This is a challenge where we need the government to come forward with some key decisions,” said Gillian Cooper. “For example, the Heat Roadmap, which should be published next summer will help signpost the types of changes that will be required - like the fact that new gas boilers are likely to be phased out in the next couple of years, for example.”

Another key challenge is the awareness of energy efficiency measures which are extremely complicated. “Consumers are dealing with a number of different providers and sectors with consumer protections changing completely depending on which sector you’re dealing with,” added Cooper. “It’s really disjointed and it’s got to change. Tackling the problems encountered by early adopters will help drive greater take-up.”

6 – Offsetting and incentives are needed for green aviation

A major challenge of airport expansion is how to stay on-track for net-zero. Sustainable fuels are still not commercially viable, so Heathrow’s Matt Gorman called for more incentives from government, as well as the airports.

As for airline passengers, he argued more engagement with consumers over offsetting is needed. For customers travelling in Europe some of their carbon will be offset already through Europe’s carbon market, and from next year a new UN scheme will offset carbon from long-haul travel. “Our view is to make sure that if people are travelling, they are paying to invest in the net-zero carbon revolution via high-quality offsetting and nature-based offsetting,” said Gorman. “But today that offsetting is voluntary and we need to become much better at promoting it.”