| By Olivia Rudgard Heat pumps are a climate-friendly alternative to gas boilers, but they've struggled to gain traction in certain countries as homeowners are either unaware of them or see the technology as too expensive. Now, some employers are promoting heat pumps as part of their corporate benefit programs in the UK. Multinational firms including French IT consultant Capgemini SE and Swiss insurer Zurich International Group Ltd. are offering interest-free loans to help UK-based employees afford heat pumps and other sustainable technology. Other companies are including third party heat pump funding services, from providers like Heat Scheme, in UK corporate incentive packages. Companies commonly offer benefits like medical insurance and gym memberships to keep their employees fit and healthy. As remote working has become normalized, making sure they are warm and comfortable at home is also a growing concern.  Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg At the same time, companies are trying to find innovative ways to minimize the broader scope of emissions that are linked to their operations. While it may be too complicated for most large companies to calculate the collective carbon footprint from employees' homes, helping staff switch to greener heating options is a step in the right direction. Capgemini has been offering a company-backed interest-free loan of up to £5,000 ($6,100) on technology like heat pumps, batteries, solar panels and insulation to its employees since 2023. In that year, working from home represented 17% of the firm's UK carbon emissions, said Chris Hodgson, the UK head of sustainability at Capgemini, so the company wanted to encourage people to use less energy. Some 4,000 of the company's more than 14,000 UK employees attended a home energy webinar when the benefit was first launched, and 135 have undergone a home energy assessment. Only 10 employees have decided to take out a loan so far, though heat pumps and other green technologies are not an impulse purchase for most people. "Some of the participants in the program have told us that they wouldn't have been able to do this without the loan," Hodgson said. "Providing an incentive for change was very important to us." Zurich is also offering loans for sustainable home energy technology to staff working in the UK and at its international office on the Isle of Man, a British Crown dependency in the Irish Sea. The first employee on the Isle of Man to take part in the program in 2023, received a loan to buy solar panels and an energy diverter, which sends excess power from the panels to heat water, according to a company press release. Around one-sixth of the UK's emissions comes from buildings, largely due to burning fossil fuels for heating, figures from the government's advisory Climate Change Committee show. Heat pumps, which are powered by electricity, are many times more efficient than fossil fuel heating and they operate emissions-free in a home. Heat Scheme, which was founded in 2022 and funded by a UK government grant in 2023, seeks to tackle the UK's slow heat-pump rollout. High costs, a lack of awareness about the technology, a confusing patchwork of funding options and a shortage of experienced installers has thrown installations off target. The UK government aims to reach 600,000 installations a year by 2028, a key part of its net zero goals. Last year only around 60,000 were installed. Nearly a third of British people haven't even heard of heat pumps, according to a survey by the home insurer Saga. Around 35 UK companies, including advertising giant JCDecaux Group and electricity networks company UK Power Networks, have signed up to give their staff access to Heat Scheme's consultation services, which provide webinars and advice sessions, as well as recommendations for heat pump installers. The benefit is now available to 375,000 employees, according to Heat Scheme founder Patrick Dougherty. Another handful of employers are also participating in Heat Scheme's funding mechanism. The company has so far facilitated a small number of employer loans for heat pumps, according to Dougherty. Employers can lend up to £10,000 at low or zero interest rates to their employees without having to report taxable benefits. Employees then pay back the sum over an agreed term. The full cost for a heat pump and installation in the UK can range from £8,000 to £20,000 (roughly $9,800 to $24,400), minus a government grant of £7,500. To be sure, not all companies are capable of offering heat pump benefit programs for employees. With the cost of wages and other benefits, including insurance, rising with inflation, it's getting harder for large employers with big overheads to consider these optional extras, according to Debi O'Donovan, director of the Reward and Employee Benefits Association, a business group for employee benefits professionals in the UK. "This is all about your employer brand, and how you want to be seen by your employees, by your customers and possibly by your shareholders," she said. "But not all employers are able to do that." Read the full story on Bloomberg.com. | 
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