The Energy Efficiency Newsletter
Restoring consumer confidence
in insulation leads the way at
the NIA Annual Conference
T
hursday 3rd December 2015 saw
around 250 delegates meet in
Hinckley at the National Insulation
Association’s (NIA) Annual
Conference to hear about key
developments within the insulation
industry, NIA’s activities to support its
members and Government policies,
regulations and schemes that will impact
the industry in the short, medium and long
term.
The Conference was opened by the
NIA’s Chair, Tony Hardiman MBE who
welcomed members and external guests
and set out the agenda for the day which
he hoped delegates would find informative
and interactive. He thanked all the
Sponsors for their support in ensuring the
event was possible. He stressed that 2015
had been a ‘challenging year’ for the
industry especially with recent policy
changes but that the NIA team had been
working hard to support its members in
a number of key areas including
improvements to the design of schemes
and business generation.
NIA’s Chief Executive, Neil Marshall,
then took to the stage and briefed members
on key developments in policies,
programmes and regulations that were
likely to impact upon their businesses.
He then set out NIA’s comprehensive
and ambitious plans for 2016 to support
its members in maximising business
opportunities and positioning NIA members
as the preferred choice to carry out work
with consumers, funders and specifiers.
Priority work areas included influencing
Government and energy companies
policies and schemes, helping members
access opportunities in all market sectors
including; new build, commercial,
SMEs and alternative sources of funding.
Promoting the benefits of insulation and
restoring consumer confidence through the
development of new quality assurance
frameworks for insulation measures and
www.completecircmktg.co.uk
ensuring members were provided with
timely information, advice and guidance
to aid their business planning.
The next session comprised officials
from the Department of Energy and Climate
Change (DECC), Scottish Government and
Welsh Government who updated delegates
on their current and future energy
efficiency policies and programmes. During
their presentations the officials commented
on the importance and
value of the input and
advice provided by
the NIA.
Richard Mellish
from DECC advised
that the three goals of
the UK Government
are a secure,
affordable and clean
energy policy. He
gave details of the
new five year supplier
obligation from April
2017 and explained
that DECC were
committed to
simplifying and
reducing the administrative costs of the
obligation. He added that whilst the new
obligation will be focussed on fuel poor
households DECC was committed to
working with the NIA and others in finding
ways to effectively drive the uptake of
insulation among able to pay households.
Scott Cameron from the Scottish
Government then spoke about the
approach in Scotland which was derived
from their sustainable housing strategy
which they launched in 2013. It worked on
the basis of information, incentives and
regulation. Their priority has been installing
Solid Wall Insulation and Hard to Treat
Cavities adopting an area based approach
to ensure all households receive help in
a systematic and effective manner and
plugging any gaps that exist. He explained
that the Scottish Government had
designated energy efficiency an
infrastructure priority and was now kicking
off work on its new long term ‘Scotland’s
Energy Efficiency Programme’ which
would include input from the NIA.
Francois Samuel, Head of Building
Regulations Policy Welsh Government,
highlighted the Welsh Governments
approach to Energy Efficiency and the
critical role it had to play in reducing bills,
tackling fuel poverty and climate change
whilst stimulating the economy. He
explained that to date Energy Efficiency
activity in Wales had provided a £2 return
for every £1 invested.
Tony Hardiman summed up the session
by thanking the speakers for their
comprehensive updates and pointing out
that where a holistic approach to energy
efficient retrofit had been adopted excellent
results had been achieved – lessons could
be learned.
Derek Horrocks, Chairman of
Sustainable Group (UK), Headline Sponsors
of the conference commented in his
address to delegates: “The industry has seen
some tough times in the last two years
which has been due to inconsistent levels
of quality and installations from
inexperienced companies due partly to
light touch accreditation and the start stop
nature of Government policies which has
now caused a doubt in consumer
confidence.”
He added: “A major part of my work
with the NIA over the next 12 months will
ISSUE 6 • 2015
continued on page 5