The Technology Strategy Board is to invest £4m in highly innovative collaborative research projects leading to the development of new components and materials for low impact buildings.

Dartford Borough Council has linked up with British Gas and is offering residents a council tax credit when they install insulation in their homes. The first 30 residents will be entitled to a credit worth £65 - paid directly into the council tax account on completion of the work, which will be reduced to £60 after the initial drive. Residents have to install loft or wall insulation through British Gas, which will be also be subsidised.

•  a 3,000 household pilot scheme to ensure people applying for Warm Front grants are referred to their energy supplier for tariff advice;
• a £3m pilot project with the low carbon buildings programme to introduce microgeneration to fuel-poor communities;
•  publication of the heat call for evidence to assist development of a heat strategy and measures to reduce energy demand – the strategy will be consulted on in the autumn;
• £150,000 for a citizens’ advice bureaux campaign to help vulnerable people.

The Low Carbon Buildings Programme has funded 5,083 “successfully completed installations,” according to energy minister Malcolm Wicks. It funded 805 Phase 1 projects in 2006, 2938 Phase 1 and 387 Phase 2 in 2007, and 724 Phase 1  and 229 Phase 2 in 2008. In 2006/7 the cost of administering the scheme was £2,037,405; and in 2007/8 it was £435,831.

The National Landlords Association has urged its members to use the Landlords’ Energy Saving Allowance which offers them tax breaks when they claim for the cost of energy saving items on their tax returns.

A new capital grant programme to support recycling businesses working to divert construction waste from landfill has been launched by the Waste & Resources Action Programme.

Applicants for heritage grants over £50,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund will need to have regard to the Fund’s new Planning Greener Heritage Projects guidance. Although the diversity of projects precludes use of minimum standards, the guidance sets out the environmental impacts it expects to see considered and the type responses it believes would be appropriate for grant funding. The guidance affects both stages of the grant application. “We recognise that more sustainable solutions sometimes (but not always) involve higher upfront costs,” says the guidance. “We are prepared to fund these extra costs where we consider them to offer value for money.” The guidance includes advice on energy, water, building materials, construction waste, soil, biodiversity and transport.

The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), based at Loughborough University aims to develop ways to cut carbon dioxide emissions.