THE Green Deal has been in the pipeline since the coalition Government came to power.

But amid ongoing controversy, confusion and uncertainty, the Government's flagship green scheme, which aims to comprehensively improve the energy efficiency of millions of homes and businesses, is finally due for launch later this year.

And with that certainty on the horizon, Nottingham businesses are preparing to take advantage of a scheme that could stimulate £50 million worth of work in Nottingham and create hundreds of new "green collar" jobs and services.

One business positioning itself for the Green Deal is Sneinton-based energy consultancy EnvirUP, which has devised an inexpensive form of external wall insulation.

EnvirUP managing director Assim Ishaque admits that while wall insulation is hardly glamorous, he anticipates it is the kind of product that social housing providers will want to buy in bulk under the stimulus of the Green Deal when it rolls out this autumn.

"The Green Deal is the biggest catalyst for the green economy in the 21st century and it's down to businesses which sell green services to innovate products householders can take advantage of," he said.

Although much detail about the Green Deal is still to be clarified, at its heart will be a financial mechanism aimed at persuading householders, landlords and small businesses to reduce the energy consumption of their properties by investing in insulation, efficient boilers and renewable energy.

The incentive is two-fold. One lure is that householders and businesses will not face upfront costs for the work, but will take out a low-interest loan with the repayments added to their electricity bills over the long-term.

The second, crucially important, lure is the so-called "Golden Rule" whereby repayments should always be lower than the savings on bills.

The projected impact on the wider economy of this is that an increased demand for energy-saving products and services should create thousands of new jobs in the private sector via demand for an army of approved "Green Deal Providers" – which means everything from home energy assessors to small companies which install loft and wall insulation.

Nottingham City Council estimates that property retrofitting through the Green Deal could mean capital expenditure of £50 million over ten years in the city.

If the authority was to undertake all £50 million worth of work it says it would create 564 jobs and create £13 million worth of energy savings in 1,200 homes over 20 years.

The Government's figures for the country are also headline-grabbing, with the Department of Energy and Climate Change estimating that if all 26 million homes in Britain take up the Green Deal, employment in the sector would rise from 27,000 to 250,000 by 2030.

Major private sector companies such British Gas, Eon, Goldman Sachs, Carillion, Kingfisher and EDF Energy have already signed up to the Green Deal by forming a non-profit consortium called the Green Deal Finance Company, which aims to support the scheme by providing low-interest finance.

Social housing providers are also expected to play a major part – and this is where SMEs like EnvirUP believe they can see opportunities for business.

EnvirUP devised its wall insulation product with the support of Nottingham Trent University's Future Factory and its target market is housing associations and large social housing providers such as Nottingham City Homes.

"We'd like to sell our product to social housing providers in volume because they're the ones who will be mostly dealing with people suffering from fuel poverty," said Mr Ishaque.

He claims that his insulation will cost around half of the price of similar products, and so should appeal to cost-conscious social landlords. He hopes that this low cost should create demand for orders and thereby stimulate further jobs and training in installation, helping to boost the city's low-carbon economy.

As the Green Deal grows closer, and the fine detail on how it will operate is clarified, other local SMEs will surely be squaring up to take advantage of the scheme.

Philip Angus, manager of Nottingham Energy Partnership, which runs a home energy improvement scheme in Nottingham called Warm Zone, believes the Green Deal will be a success in the long term.

But he thinks that there are many unknowns in the scheme that have to addressed.

In private sector housing, for example, will homeowners really want to take out a low-interest loan worth thousands of pounds on the promise of long-term reduced bills? He also asks how much of the employment generated by Green Deal work in insulation will devolve to local companies.

"A few national companies dominate the market with regional depots and while some installers are based in, and are working at a regional level, it has been a cut-throat business with new enterprises going out of business," he said.

"High end suppliers require installers to be trained and 'licensed' to use their product. That may mean there will be even more of a tendency towards national contractors."