Buckingham Palace is just one of the many royal homes where cost-cutting methods are being implemented (Picture: PA)

The heating at Buckingham Palace and other royal homes was turned down to 19C in the winter to cut emissions, royal accounts show.

It is part of King Charles’s pledge to protect the environment, tackle climate change and protect wildlife.

He even recycles his bathwater at Clarence House and runs his Aston Martin on sustainable fuel.

But the cost of the royal family has risen for the taxpayer for the second year in a row.

Sovereign grant accounts show the figure increased by £5.1 million, or 5%, to £107.5 million for 2022-23.

Royal aides said this was due to the change of monarchs, inflation and the continued costs of Buckingham Palace’s reservicing programme, a 10-year project to update the electrical cabling, plumbing and heating.

The royal household also failed to meet its diversity target set in 2021, drawing 10% of its workforce from ethnic minorities, with the 2023 figure of 9.7% the same as last year.

Payroll costs was one of the biggest annual increases of any expenditure during 2022-23, rising £3.4 million to £27.1 million, with staff given a pay rise of about 5-6%.

It is all part of Charles’s attempt to help the environment (Picture: Reuters)

Spending on travel for the royal family was down £600,000 to £3.9 million, housekeeping and hospitality up from £1.3 million to £2.4 million, and property maintenance fell £6.1 million to £57.8 million.

After Prince Harry and Meghan were kicked out of Frogmore Cottage, speculation remains rife as to who will be the next tennant.

Prince Andrew refuses to downsize from the Royal Lodge into the much smaller Frogmore Cottage.

Sir Michael Stevens, keeper of the privy purse, said the past 12 months had been ‘a year of grief, change and celebration, the like of which our nation has not witnessed for seven decades’.