Rise in UK household spending on 'green goods'

UK households are slowly going green and are now spending more than £250 a year on environmentally-friendly products such as low-energy lightbulbs and energy-efficient appliances, figures suggested today.

The Cooperative Bank's annual Ethical Consumerism Report showed that expenditure on green products and services topped £6.4 billion in 2008.

Despite the recession, spending on green goods increased by five per cent on the previous year, with each household spending an average of £251 on environmentally-friendly products.

The figure has steadily risen over the past few years, according to the report, but still only accounts for less than one per cent of household expenditure. Spending on energy-efficient appliances, boilers and lightbulbs has risen across the country as a whole, as has cash for green transport, small-scale renewables and green energy tariffs.

Only spending on "responsible travel" had fallen in the past two years.

Tim Franklin, chief operating officer at the Cooperative Bank, said the figures showed political leaders - who are attempting to secure a new deal on tackling climate change at crunch UN talks in Copenhagen - that many people in the UK were working hard to adopt a greener lifestyle.

But he added: "In order for the UK to reduce its carbon emissions by 30 per cent by 2020 there will need to be a step-change in take-up of low-carbon technologies, and this will need a new contract between business, government and the consumer."