Listers Customers get £Half Million Bonus
It’s calculated that 33% of energy consumption came from homes in 2005 – that is more than transport, or industry used in the same period. The BFRC states that £370million per annum is lost through existing poorly insulated domestic windows. In fact, homes are responsible for 28% of ALL UK CO2 emissions and non energy efficient windows are responsible for 20% of ALL heat lost. Each home could save around £150 on their energy bill by replacing typical single glazed windows for energy efficient ones.
Operations Director, Andrew Gray, says that Listers’ achievement in energy efficiency would be very hard for any other window company to match. “We made the decision some 18 months ago to make BFRC accredited glazed windows our standard product. And to date we have sold around 50,000 of those windows. Being conservative, that’s over 3,500 homes and if each home saves £150 on their energy bills, that’s well over £500,000 saved. And you have to remember that that’s a yearly saving. So, if a realistic life of a PVCu window is now estimated to be 35 years that’s a saving to Listers’ customers in excess of £17.5 Million on windows already installed.”
The important thing to remember here is that Listers isn’t a company just talking about what could or might be achieved: they have already put these savings into the market place. They are making a large environmental difference right now with every window they sell, and they have been doing this, week in week out, for well over a year.
We really wanted our windows to have a positive impact on the environment” Says Andrew. “Forget the money on energy savings if you like, just consider the carbon savings that we have made: fitting energy efficient windows can reduce a home’s carbon emissions by 0.38 tonnes per year. 3500 homes installed with our windows means 1330 tonnes per year saved. Over 20 years that’s 26,600 tonnes of carbon saved by Listers’ efforts alone. And that has to be good for everyone.”
50,000 BFRC ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ energy rated windows sold to date
Over 35,000 square metres of energy rated glazing sold
£500,000 saved by customers on reduced energy bills, in one year
26,600 tonnes of carbon saved from the environment
When Listers first gained their A, B and C window energy ratings certificates 18 months ago, they were asked by one magazine editor if it was just for a badge or a marketing exercise. This is Andrew’s answer: “If it had been our intention to take all the time and trouble in achieving ‘C’ ‘B’ and ‘A’ rated windows, and then just to keep them as ‘an optional extra’ with an over inflated price tag, then yes, I would have to agree, the whole exercise would just have been a badge hunt. But that isn’t what Listers are about. From the inception of the Window Energy Rating scheme, Listers intention was to blaze the trail for BFRC through our promotion and maximum distribution of these products. With the number of first achievements that we have notched up in this field, we are totally confident that we have met this objective.”
“At the end of the day, it is relatively easy now to get a badge for energy rated windows, even an ‘A’ rating. However, it takes a lot of ingenuity and collaborative work with the supply chain to development a marketable, cost effective solution to the WER. Listers were the first company to make these products their standard offering to their customers. But this strategy has made commercial sense for Listers as we have seen revenue figures exceed even the most ambitious forecasts over the last year. We make no apologies for this because we are not interested in ‘badges’ unless they can provide a tangible benefit for our customers and our business. We have used the BFRC scheme to the full and as a result, we have benefited, our customers have benefited and the environment has benefited too. What more can I say?”
When looking at the unrivalled number of sales of these products Listers have to be rated as the most proactive and successful window company in the area of energy efficiency. It’s good to hear that more and more companies are achieving energy ratings on their windows. Let’s hope that a good proportion of them take a similar attitude to Listers and make a real difference to our industry and the environment.
