 | These two bulbs might look pretty similar but, beneath the surface, there are some important differences. The bulb on the left uses five times less energy than the one on the right. It lasts up to 12 times longer. It can save UK consumers around £1.2 billion in electricity bills per year. It’s available for less than a pound from several major retailers. |  |
Oh, and if every UK retailer only stocked the one on the left, the UK could cut just over five million tonnes of carbon dioxide from our total emissions – more than the CO2 emissions of the world's 26 lowest emitting countries combined!
Yep, the bulb on the left is a Compact Fluorescent Lamp (or CFL). It’s been around for years but, recently, the cost has plummeted and the design has improved massively - it’s now available in all sorts of shapes, colours and sizes. The bulb on the right is the common household light bulb – an incandescent bulb that wastes 95 per cent of energy as heat. Yet it still accounts for 80 per cent of bulbs in UK homes.
With the government unlikely to bring in an energy efficiency law anytime soon, we've launched a new campaign to get every UK supermarket, DIY store and department store to make the switch and take all incandescent bulbs off their shelves.
As I wrote last month, the Co-op’s already pledged to do exactly this, and Curry’s has already done it. Now we just have to persuade the rest of them.
Which is where you come in. Retailers’ purchasing practices directly affect the world we live in, even down to the weather. And, as we saw with the revolution triggered by our sustainable seafood campaign, they are sensitive to consumer pressure.
If you want to help remind retailers of their responsibilities (and help cut the UK's emissions by over five million tonnes) please send a letter to your supermarket, DIY store or department store now.
