How Can Housing Make The Most Of The Green Deal?

With months to go until the launch of the Green Deal, social landlords are preparing to make use of the government scheme that has promised to revolutionise the energy efficiency of the nation's homes.  The Green Deal will remove the upfront cost of installing energy efficient technologies, with residents paying off the balance through an increase in energy bills under a "golden rule" where the additional charge will not exceed the expected savings.  The scheme aims to retrofit 14m homes by 2020, cut carbon emissions from the UK's housing stock by 29% and generate £7bn of investment, creating up to 250,000 new jobs.  The initial response to the Green Deal was a combination of excitement, caution and confusion. The fund offered the chance for housing providers to improve the quality of their stock, tackle fuel poverty and mark out the social housing sector's place at the forefront of sustainability.  But there are reservations over how the deal will be implemented, questions about the practicalities of major retrofit programmes left unanswered, and further confusion prompted by coalition cuts to the Feed-in tariffs (Fits) scheme.  How housing can make the most of the Green Deal was the subject of a Guardian discussion. Read what the experts had to say on the Guardian website.