King Charles ‘helping save cash and planet by turning down heat in Buckingham Palace’s swimming pool’
After years of being renowned for his passion for green issues, King Charles is reportedly saving money by turning down the thermostat on Buckingham Palace’s swimming pool.
King Charles is reportedly helping save money and the environment by turning down the thermostat on Buckingham Palace’s swimming pool.
The newly-crowned monarch, 74, whose passion for the planet and green issues is well known, is also said to think the luxury is “environmentally unsound” and doesn’t fit in with his “world view”.
A source told the Sunday Times newspaper: “A few people using the pool have noticed that the temperature of the water has dropped, and it is quite a bit cooler than it used to be.
“They have been told the king has had the heating turned down.”
An insider also said Charles probably thinks the pool, which senior members of the royal household are permitted to use, “is environmentally unsound, because the water has chemicals and has to be heated” and it “doesn’t fit with his exercise regime or his world view”.
The utilities bill for the royal palaces, paid for by the taxpayer via the sovereign grant, was last year £3.2 million.
Charles – who obsessively switches off lights and eats vegan once a week – is known to be keen to achieve net zero emissions in the royal household before the government’s target date of 2050.
He has installed solar panels on the roof at his London home, Clarence House, and at his country property Highgrove in Gloucestershire.
The pool at Buckingham Palace was commissioned by George VI in 1938, for Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, who had been having swimming lessons at the Bath Club.
Charles learnt to swim there, as did his siblings, while his late wife Princess Diana regular used it.
Princes William and Harry are thought to have learnt to swim there.
Senior members of the royal household are told to check in advance if a member of the royal family is having a dip to avoid a clash.
Prince Harry, 38, said about his dad’s environmentalism in the documentary ‘Prince, Son and Heir: Charles at 70’: “He'’ a stickler for turning lights off. And that's now something that I’m obsessed with as well, which is insane because actually, my wife goes, ‘Well, why turn the lights off? You know it’s dark.’
“I go, ‘We only need one light, we don’t need like six,’ and all of a sudden, it becomes a habit and those small habit changes he’s making, every single person can do.
“And I think that’s one of the key lessons certainly that I felt that he taught us.
“I know I’ve got serious OCD on light switches now which is terrible.”
