But what if it was made easier to be energy efficient? What if we could buy an energy audit, the correct insulation and even photovoltaic panels with a loaf of bread and box of muesli?
Well, energy saving and microgeneration are apparently being mainstreamed as British Gas partners with Sainsbury's (sainsburysenergy.com; 0800 316 0 316). Stock up on loft insulation, tailored home-energy assessments and – providing your roof points in the right direction – photovoltaic solar panels that allow you to benefit from the Feed-in Tariff scheme (payments to homeowners who use their homes to generate energy and sell it back to the grid).
According to Sainsbury's, installing average-sized solar panels of 1.4kw would save householders £600 a year. Furthermore, the supermarket claims that as the scheme only uses British Gas solar installers it negates the problem of so-called solar cowboys: independent, non-certified installers of dubious ability. When Which? investigated solar-panel companies last year, it deemed that only one out of the 14 analysed were worthy of recommendation.
Supermarket solar is not the only way to go as realised by community energy projects such as Transition Town Marlow's Solar 100 project (transitionmarlow.org). It is getting easier, but keep the extra jumper on for the now.