The average household in the UK creates about six tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, chiefly from the fuels that we use (coal, oil and gas) for routine activities like cooking, washing and keeping our homes warm. Emissions from cars and travelling by the family are an additional environmental burden

Some emissions are unavoidable there is a general agreement that most home owners could reduce the emissions by taking a series of easy steps, which would also save money for the home owner

The EPC is issued after an inspection of the property which takes between 1-2 hours and is carried out by a qualified Energy Performance Assessor. The certificate will contain the following information:

1. Details of your home, its address, date of report and property size in square metres.

2 A table with headline performance ratings calculated in terms of the average energy use per square metre of floor area, and its "environmental impact" based on carbon dioxide (C02) emissions.

3 A table providing indicative costs to light, heat and provide hot water, making standard assumptions about occupancy, heating patterns and the location of the property. This will make any one property easy to compare with another. Energy use will include the energy used in the home and the energy it takes to deliver the fuel to your home. Service or maintenance costs for energy devices are not included.

4 A summary of the property's energy performance features, with walls, roofs, floors, windows, heating systems, hot water systems and lighting rated as very poor, poor, average, good or very good.

5 Recommended measures to improve the home's performance ratings. These may typically include putting a 150mm jacket on the hot water cylinder, upgrading loft insulation to the recommended 250mm thickness, fully filling wall cavities with fibre, or installing a more energy-efficient boiler. It will not state the cost of these improvements - which will vary according to the cost of local labour and the materials used - but it will contain estimated annual cost savings.