MCS responds to CMA Consultation on marketing renewables
9 February 2024
In December 2023, The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) issued a six-week consultation on the proposed marketing guidelines for technologies in our sector. MCS today submitted its response to that consultation.
MCS fully support the CMA’s intention to create clearer guidance for contractors around the marketing of renewables.
The outcome of the consultation will inform the way contractors across the renewable industry market their business. With this in mind, we sought views from our contractor base to input into the MCS response to the consultation. The responses gathered show that our contractors are generally supportive of the CMA’s proposals and are passionate about ensuring that there are clear guidelines for the marketing of renewable technologies across our sector.
Response headlines:
- MCS recommend that price discounts from grants should be allowed to be included in the headline pricing for renewables, as long as the discount is clearly highlighted. Preventing marketing materials from including a discount based on a grant presents a distorted and over-inflated price compared to what consumers are realistically expected to pay.
- MCS recommend that a ‘Best Practice’ template or toolkit is available. Providing clear examples of best practice, alongside non-compliant equivalents, would provide clearer guidance for businesses to develop their marketing materials.
- MCS recommend that the marketing guidelines be applied to ‘all heating technologies’. This is because the draft compliance advice includes marketing guidance around solar PV. We therefore recommend that the title of guidance is changed the incorporate this.
MCS look forward to seeing the outcome of the CMA’s consultation, which is expected to be published this spring.
Click here to read more about the CMA’s consultation.