Preparing the ground

The ‘Time to Go’ campaign in the UK is now well under way – except that we have decided to re-name it as the ‘Time to Change’ campaign. Having considered a number of proposals, AMDEA has appointed the Barnett Fernandes consultancy to help with running the campaign.

The early preparatory work on the campaign took place in the second half of 2006, when CECED laid down overall requirements which would generate financial support for it. Early in 2007, a special working group was set up in AMDEA to monitor and help to co-ordinate activities in the UK. Some AMDEA members also agreed to provide start-up funding. After some discussions with retra – the Association also agreed to provide some financial support.

The campaign's targets There are two targets in the AMDEA campaign. First is the Government, which needs to be persuaded to support the concept of early replacement of appliances as part of its strategy on energy and the environment.

The second target are consumers, who need to be convinced that there are not only benefits for our planet in making energy savings through early replacement, but financial benefits to themselves as well.

With regard to the first objective, we have been in contact with Defra and what was once called the DTI but now rejoices in the acronym DBERR. Officials from these Departments are broadly supportive of our aims, and suggested conducting some further work and developing more contacts. We outlined the ways in which other countries provided fiscal incentives to encourage early replacement of appliances, such as consumer tax credits in Italy.

It was heartening to hear Gordon Brown recently raise the possibility of a lower rate of VAT on energy–efficient appliances. It is not necessarily the most effective of fiscal incentives, but it does indicate that the UK Government is at last prepared to discuss fiscal incentives of some sort with its European partners. (Tax matters require unanimity across the EU.)

Our second, and more public part of ‘Time to Change’ relating to consumers revolves around our new website, which will be launched on 11 October.

Plan of action

Why wait until then? Well, first of all we have to prepare accurate and trusted figures which will highlight the size of the savings which consumers can make by changing their appliances early. In order to do this we are holding meetings with bodies such as Defra and the Energy Savings Trust. For AMDEA to simply present figures on our own – even though we know them to be accurate – would invite comments such as “they would say that, wouldn't they, they are just trying to sell more products”.

And last – but certainly not least – we will be organising a media campaign so that people are aware of ‘Time to Change’ and its website. This will culminate in the official launch on 11 October (though we will continue to provide information and supporting material well beyond that date).

But ‘Time to Change’ cannot work without the active support of our partners in the supply chain. It is the retailers after all who come face to face with consumers who hopefully will be seeking information about more energy efficient products.

That is why we have met with retra to discuss the needs of independent electrical retailers, as well as with the British Retail Consortium and a number of significant retailers who sell our products. We will be making available retailer information material and the ‘Time to Change’ logo. We hope to have links between their websites and ours. We also hope that all retailers will take advantage of our press and radio campaign.

Printer friendly version

Email this article to a friend

Bookmark this

---