Energy Company Obligation ECO4A (Great British Insulation Scheme): HHCRO targets, qualifying measures, compliance, transfers, and 2025–2026 amendments (England, Wales and Scotland)

Published by a LexisNexis Environment expert

Practice notes

What is the ECO?

The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) is an energy efficiency initiative that obliges major energy suppliers to install efficiency measures across existing domestic premises. It provides support and funding totalling around £1bn each year (at 2022 prices). The scheme concentrates on facilitating the installation of energy-saving measures in low income households and neighbourhoods, as well as in properties that are more difficult to upgrade. ECO succeeded earlier domestic schemes aimed at cutting carbon and improving energy efficiency—the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target and the Community Energy Saving Programme.

The ECO pursues four policy aims:

to extend delivery of energy efficiency measures to a wider range of households facing rising energy bills
the reduction of fuel poverty and progress towards fuel poverty targets
to help meet carbon reduction targets within the domestic sector
to lower the cost of achieving the UK’s net zero target by encouraging more efficient energy use

ECO is enacted through secondary legislation: the Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) Order 2023, SI 2023/873 (the ECO 2023 Order). The ECO 2023 Order was amended in July 2025 by the Electricity and Gas (Energy Company Obligation) (Amendment, Saving...

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Dr Ben Christman

Ben Christman is an independent researcher. He has a PhD in law from Queen's University Belfast on the law on fuel poverty from an energy justice perspective (2017). He is an editor of the UK Environmental Law Association's 'elaw' member's newsletter. He is a tutor in EU and public law at the University of Edinburgh. He has recently finished a research project for the Scottish Environment Link, aimed at setting up a Scottish environmental rights centre. He is interested in access to justice. He is a member of the Scottish Environment Link's Legal Governance subgroup and the Law Society of Scotland's access to justice committee. He has worked and volunteered for a number of access to justice-type organisations such as the Ethnic Minorities Law Centre, the Legal Services Agency and the Law Centre Northern Ireland. He currently works part-time for the Lothian Centre for...

Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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