The UK government hasn’t offered the right opportunities for businesses to achieve green futures. Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party says that if the Coalition is to become the ‘greenest government ever’ then it needs to make better conditions for green investment.

Mrs Lucas told the Guardian: “Innovation and entrepreneurship by the business community will be at the heart of the transition to a low carbon and sustainable economy. But if we are to create the right conditions to foster such a transition, the government must engage better with business by showing more clarity, consistency, and certainty than it is right now.”

The leader of the Green Party added that green loans, like those that exist in Germany, were essential for the delivery of the UK future energy mix: “Green Deal-type loans for energy efficiency are subsidised through the government’s equivalent to a Green Investment Bank. This brings interest rates down to low single figures. Unless we do that here, take up is expected to be woefully low.”