Our thinking

Warm jackets, cool planet

4 October, 2024

Could the energy saving hacks devised in response to rising energy prices help cut carbon emissions? This week saw a 10% increase in the UK energy price cap, leaving 7.7 million households in England struggling to heat their homes.

Martin Lewis’s Money Saving Expert released a guide to ‘heat the human, not the home’ to cut bill costs. It explored cheaper ways to warm up such as hot water bottles and electric blankets, and the electric gilet, costing just 4p a week to run, piqued our interest. Heating a family of four over winter with these gilets could cost less than £5, after the initial purchase, a far cry from the £1,717 average annual energy bill.

The carbon savings are equally impressive. Heating a home with gas consumes approximately 6,780 kWh of energy, emitting 1,245 kg of CO2e per year, while one gilet consumes just 23.3 kWh of electricity over winter, emitting approximately 6 kg of CO2e per person. While gilets won’t completely replace the need for gas heating, turning down the thermostat by 2°C could save 3,090 kWh per year, which when accounting for additional emissions from the gilets, reduces emissions by 562 kg of CO2e (45%) annually.

But how far can the power of the heated gilet go? Could businesses follow suit (or gilet) with a combination of heated jackets and lower thermostats to reduce emissions from their offices? This may seem far-fetched, but many companies lack the power to switch from gas boilers to heat pumps in leased offices, and with the cheap-to-run jackets costing as little as £35, the cost savings could be significant.

By Nia Vines