In this second instalment of my blog about Consumer Protection in Green Deal, we’ll cover Green Deal Finance, and particularly the Golden Rule and savings estimates, and the role of Green Deal Advisors in explaining this to their customer.   



The Advisor needs to be completely confident with these concepts, as they are critical to protecting the customer from the risk that after Green Deal improvements have been installed, their total utility bills go up instead of down.  But first, let’s understand the difference between Advice and Information, and their different roles in Green Deal.

Green Deal will be judged by the level of consumer protection it offers.  
In my session at Retro Expo last week, I took my audience on a 20 minute canter through its key aspects, including:

• The role of GD-ORB - the oversight and registration body – the Green Deal Code of Practice and Green Deal Mark;
• Green Deal finance, the Golden rule, savings estimates, standard occupancy and in-use factors;
• Advisor certification, and the importance of good advice;
• Installing energy efficiency improvements - PAS 2030 & installer certification;
• Protections at the Repayment stage.

Unfortunately, if attendance at my session was a reliable indicator, the Retro Expo audience had not come to the exhibition to learn about consumer protection.  So for the benefit of those that do, over the next couple of weeks I’ll be posting a summary of what I covered.

This week, I’ll start with THE OVERSIGHT AND REGISTRATION BODY: GD-ORB..