Last week was a busy week for the Grand Designs Great British Refurb campaign, and a really important week for UK homes’ energy efficiency. With your fantastic support we handed in our petition to No. 10 with over 8,000 signatures, sending a clear message that we all want the government to do more to help us reduce the impact of our homes on the environment.

Also last week the government published its Low Carbon Transition Plan, setting out plans for how it will meet the ambitious targets set in the 2008 Climate Change Act – a 34% cut in emissions by 2020 leading to an 80% cut by 2050.

To significantly improve the energy efficiency of the vast majority of our existing homes, that’s to say,  to go beyond the low hanging fruit of loft and cavity wall insulation, is fraught with hassle, expensive, and let’s face it, not the most compelling of topics for conversation with our friends. But, it could be the most important thing we could do to tackle climate change, and at the same time, one of the smartest investments we could make in our homes.

So we have to turn things around. We have to make energy efficient refurb easy, affordable and yes, even aspirational! And that’s where Kevin McCloud and the Grand Designs Great British Refurb Campaign come in. Because if anyone can make solid wall insulation sexy, Kevin McCloud, the heart-throb tsar of the designer home, surely can.

Only a few years ago it was all about letter writing.  Then along came email and websites.  Now no campaign can call itself a campaign without a blog, a facebook group and even a twitter.  And the Grand Designs Great British Refurb Campaign is no exception.  So welcome to our blog.  We hope you’ll be a regular visitor and we hope you’ll tell your friends.  But of course you’ll do none of those things unless you know what this campaign is about.

27 per cent of the UK’s carbon emissions come from our homes.  Most of us don’t live in brand new eco friendly homes.  We live in poorly insulated, drafty ones which get too hot in the summer and leak heat in the winter.  Most of these homes will still be around in 2050, and we’ll still be living in them.  So much as we applaud the government’s ambitions on zero carbon new homes by 2016 we have a simple question.