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I have spent the past 25 years working for a more sustainable world. I have campaigned to save endangered species and to protect the rainforest; for stronger pollution controls, standards for greener products and laws to cut emissions of climate-changing gases.

After months of deliberation, the UK government has announced a range of illustrative figures for feed-in tariffs (FITs), which it's calling a Clean Energy Cashback scheme. FITs are fixed payments made to the owners of small generating stations for the electricity that they export to the grid. Micro-generators need high payments to justify their expensive investment in buying and installing green generation.

Solar PV (photovoltaic) cells generate electricity directly from sunlight. They've been around for decades, though over time have become less expensive and more efficient, with production accelerating quickly in the past few years.

If it becomes law, the UK's climate change legislation will be the toughest of its kind in the world, says Lord Puttnam. However, in this week's Green Room, he says the government is still failing to make the most of an untapped resource – local communities.