The lawn in front of the UK parliament building is covered in hundreds of mock gravestones in rows. Funeral style wording in flowers reads 'cold homes cost lives'.
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Cold homes cost lives: activists build cemetery from insulation boards outside Parliament

Greenpeace UK
Greenpeace UK

What’s happening?

Greenpeace activists have turned a Royal Park outside the Houses of Parliament into a cemetery, to memorialise the 70,463 people who have died in cold homes since 2013.

The hundreds of headstones are made out of insulation boards, the very material that could have saved these people’s lives.

We’re here to remember all those people who the government left out in the cold, and remind the government that their failure to insulate homes has a human cost.

Why we’re taking action

UK homes have some of the worst insulation in Western Europe, and we’ve fallen far behind when it comes to greening our homes.

Back in 2013, then-Prime Minister David Cameron decided to “cut the green crap” – slashing government spending on home insulation and other energy efficiency measures. This left millions of Brits in cold, leaky homes and with more expensive energy bills.

Since then, cold homes have led to more and more avoidable deaths in winter. Yet the Conservative governments since 2013 have all failed to bring in enough funding for insulation and energy efficiency improvements in homes. These deaths are a result of consecutive governments’ repeated policy failure.

What can fix this?

The solutions to this problem are simple: well-insulated homes means less money and energy spent on heating, and homes will stay warmer for longer. This will bring down our demand for oil and gas, lower the cost of energy bills, and most importantly, save thousands of lives.

This is the year of a general election – and whoever wins, we need the future government to step up. Greenpeace is calling on the next government to invest £6bn per year in energy efficiency upgrades for UK homes.

The Labour Party had previously pledged to invest at this level, but recently scaled back its spending plans for insulating homes by over 70%. Greenpeace is demanding that the Labour Party restores its previous spending commitments.

Colourful photo montage shows Greenpeace activists and volunteers at work, along with wildlife like polar bears, whales and orangutans.

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