The Carbon Commitment Reduction Starts Today

The Carbon Reduction Commitment, UK’s first mandatory carbon trading scheme, starts today and will cover public and private sector organisations. Every organisation that consumes more than 6,000 MWh (6,000,000 kWh) a year of half-hourly metered electricity (equivalent to an annual electricity bill of about £500,000) must arrange an audit of their CO2 emissions.

The scheme works in compliance with existing EU Emissions Trading Scheme and Climate Change Agreements. In this initial phase the carbon reduction scheme is expected to affect approximately 25% of total business sector emissions within the UK, a total of 5,000 organisations will have to take part in the first phase of the scheme.

All organisations must register by September and will be ranked according to how much they have saved or spent, based on that there will be financial rewards and penalties dependent on their position. To cover their emissions, businesses will have to buy allowances at a fixed price of £12 per tonne.

The Carbon Reduction Commitment aims to reduce the level of the CO2 emissions by approximately 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2020. In the long run the scheme aims for an 80% reduction of Britains CO2 emission by 2050.

On paper the scheme sounds promising but business groups have been criticising it, claiming that it has complex rules and too many extra fees, especially for environmental consultants.

Specialists believe that the scheme is likely to add on average 6% to affected companies’ energy bills next year with the possibility of going as high as a 20% increase by 2015 for the worst performing ones. Companies that reduce their emissions could see savings of 6% over the next five years.

A survey revealed that a high number of businesses affected by the carbon scheme do not know how to buy carbon allowances or how to forecast future targets. That is when energy consultancy firms will come into play, many already offer services like Carbon Trust surveys and other business energy management solutions that will help organisations save energy and consequently reduce their carbon footprint.

It is estimated that the cost to meet the legislation will be about £25,000 per company which is causing another wave of complaints among companies that have already spent money to reduce their carbon footprint in the past and may not be in compliance with the scheme as it only looks at future efficiency savings.

Kanat Emiroglu, managing director of British Gas Business said: “There is a degree of understandable confusion among many UK businesses about what the energy efficiency legislation will mean for them”

“Often there isn’t one single individual within the business who is tasked with monitoring the CRC.”

To learn more about the Carbon Commitment Reduction and for other energy management solutions contact Catalyst Commercial.

Related posts...

• March 29, 2010 -- Making an Information Disclosure: (8)
  Half Hourly Electricity Meter customers have just days to go before the launch of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme in the UK. It’s become a bit of a misconception that the CRC is only for large publi...
• June 4, 2010 -- Compare Half Hour Electricity: (11)
  With rising costs, it's imperative for every business to cut down on their expenses. Of course some expenses such as half hourly electricity are completely unavoidable. Therefore, the best way to de...
• April 28, 2010 -- Half Hourly Electricity: (7)
  Half hourly electricity prices can be difficult to obtain, and then even harder to work out what your actually paying. Let us do the hard work for you, with our compressive range of half hourly elect...
• June 10, 2010 -- Half Hourly Electricity Suppliers: (5)
  Today, every business has to deal with the fact that as electricity consumption is on the rise, and its cost can no longer be ignored as just a little overhead. The cost of half hourly energy is becom...
• May 4, 2010 -- Fraudulent Carbon Trading: (13)
  UK and German tax officers teamed up in a major cross-border investigation into alleged carbon trading fraud involving fraudsters from Britain, France, Spain, Denmark and Holland. ...
• April 2, 2010 -- UK Energy Market Review – Apr10: (1)
  The Catalyst UK energy market brief, is a brief analysis of short and long term key energy market drivers, effecting gas and electricity prices, market conditions and future energy price outlook....

1. [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by adullam Limited, Energy Broker. Energy Broker said: New blog posting, Business Energy CRC Scheme: – http://www.catalyst-commercial.co.uk/blog/?p=1225 [...]

   Pingback by Tweets that mention UK Energy News Blog, Business Energy and the UK Energy Market – Catalyst Commercial Services Ltd » Business Energy CRC Scheme: -- Topsy.com — April 1, 2010 @ 3:01 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

CAPTCHA Code *