If you are interested in reducing your impact on climate change, the very first thing you should do is simply switch your home electricity contract to a 'green tariff' supplier. It's really easy to do (usually just a 5 minute phone call), and thereafter your electricity will come from renewable sources.

Which one?

Many different companies now offer green tariff plans - in fact your existing supplier may well offer you a "renewable energy" tariff. Unfortunately it may not be as straightforward as that - the green credentials of these deals aren't usually all they are cracked up to be.

Our advice

Our advice is to go with a small independent supplier like Ecotricity or Good Energy. Good Energy will guarantee to supply you with 100% renewable energy, which they source from existing renewable supplies. However Good Energy have been criticised for not re-investing in the construction of new renewable generation capacity, something that is very important to help wean the UK off fossil fuels. Ecotricity, on the other hand, will encourage you to take a supply package that may actually only be partly renewable energy, but they are committed to ploughing profits back into building new wind farms etc (with over £900 invested per customer in 2004).

We'd recommend either of these small independent companies as a good choice for doing your bit to encourage renewable energy in the UK, in addition to generating your own on site energy where this is feasible.