Written evidence submitted by Snugg (RFH0020)

Snugg is a fast-growing startup that is partnered with various banks, utilities and consumer advice bodies (including Which?) to provide personalised, digital consumer advice on retrofitting to homeowners across the UK.

What factors are contributing to the under-delivery of government retrofit schemes?

We firmly believe that this is predominantly a demand issue. The vast majority of our users that do not implement their improvement plans blame the poor payback. Only c. 5% of our users are motivated by reducing emissions, so the financial case must be compelling. A number of levers can improve this without huge cost to the taxpayer, both financial and educational – covered below.

How will the public afford the switch to low carbon heating?

We recognise that grants can only be part of the solution. In our experience, banks are willing to help finance these improvements but struggle to engage directly with homeowners at scale. This would be resolved through better co-ordination across the homeowner/tenant journey including through place-based projects (see below), generating a pipeline of interested customers for appropriate financial solutions. Additionally we believe the voluntary carbon credit (VCC) market can play a big part. A typical heat pump installation should generate over £2,000 in carbon credit value (based on 10 years of CO2 reduction.

How should the home heating transition be coordinated at a national and local level? 

We need joined up user-centric journeys that start with trusted advice but point directly to surveying services, installers, grant providers and lenders. Such a service could be commercially run and free to innovate and evolve based on insights into what works.  The same service should be deployed at local level in support of place-based projects, plugging into community engagement activities and supporting local co-ordinators.

November 2024