Cathy Debenham is founder and director of YouGen.

The seed of the idea for YouGen was born when we renovated our house in 2005. We wanted to make it as low carbon as possible. Having weighed up the alternatives we got quotes for a wood pellet boiler. None of the suppliers came to look at our house. The top and bottom price quoted varied by £4,000, and none of the advice agencies could help us to assess the relative benefits (and enormously different prices) of the products quoted for.

We gave up and bought a condensing gas boiler - but I noticed a gap in the market. Happily things have improved since, and more advice is readily available (although it does vary according to where you live). However, it is still hard to take that last step, and chose your supplier.

The idea sat at the back of my mind for a while, until eventually I thought that I could put my experience in marketing, communication and journalism to better use than I was and follow my passion for finding better ways of living: YouGen was born.

Although we didn’t get the biomass boiler, we are now the proud owners of solar thermal panels which provide lots of lovely hot water. We’d like solar electricity too, but aren’t sure that there’s enough roof facing in the right direction…

See my YouGen profile, join me at Linked-In or follow me on Twitter.

Gilly Jones is Development Officer at YouGen.

Gilly joined YouGen in January 2010. With a degree in Earth Science, she worked for a leading environmental information provider for just under 8 years. Throughout her career, Gilly has had extensive experience of delivering cutting edge solutions, with more than 15 years in sales, marketing and management.