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B&Q has unveiled a unique project to investigate the very latest in eco-living with the news that a house in Eastleigh will act as a test-bed to trial the latest green initiatives.
The retailer has also launched a petition for customers, colleagues and MPs to sign up to its campaign to get the VAT reduced on green goods.
At a Parliamentary reception in Westminster, Dame Ellen MacArthur joined Euan Sutherland, CEO of B&Q and Kingfisher UK and energy and climate change minister Greg Barker to learn more about how the retailer is helping consumers to make their homes more sustainable.
The measures announced support the government's Green Deal initiative to help the country reduce its emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.
B&Q is one of four founding partners of Dame MacArthur's new charity The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which aims to inspire young people to re-think, re-design and build a sustainable future.
The UK's largest home improvement and garden centre retailer has set targets for itself as a business, including a 15 per cent reduction in packaging and for 90 per cent of all waste to be reclaimed, recycled or composted by 2012.
One of the longer-term aims of the partnership is to reconsider the way that products are currently made and disposed of.
Addressing the reception, energy and climate change minister noted the "integral" part that B&Q has in the Coalition's "most ambitious energy efficiency programme ever devised – the Green Deal".
Barker pointed to the DIY specialist's "long pedigree and heritage in the sustainability agenda and helping to mainstream it".
He said: "There is a lot more to B&Q than their aprons whether they are the orange or the new and very fashionable green.
"That is their extraordinary ability to take things which are at the edge of the consumers' horizon and bringing them in to the mainstream.
"Their ability to take the sustainability agenda and make it in to something that is not only useful and affordable, but relevant and interesting and even at times exciting for the average shopper."
He added: "That is why B&Q along with other leading retailers and those companies with a genius for marketing and innovation are going to be a core part of our Green Deal."
Euan Sutherland said: "Each week three million people walk through our doors with the sole intention of making improvements to their home.
"This means we are well placed to understand the challenges faced by homeowners and the building trades when converting properties to make them more sustainable.
"Ultimately, we can use these insights to help make a positive difference by looking at ways to make it easier for people to reduce the carbon footprint of their homes."
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