Industry News

• The Carbon Reduction Commitment: Important Policy Amendments Announced

  18 Dec 2008

  Significant amendments to the forthcoming Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) have been put forward by the newly-formed Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The DECC, which will be responsible for all UK energy demand and supply policy, has proposed two major changes to the CRC:
  
  

  The third consultation on the CRC, which had initially been planned for this autumn, is now set to take place in February 2009. This consultation will focus on establishing ‘comprehensive and accurate’ regulations for the legally-binding scheme, which will affect approximately 4,000 public and private sector organisations across the UK.
  
  

  In light of the re-scheduled regulations consultation, two further dates in the scheme have also been revised. The registration period, which had been due to commence early in 2009, will now run concurrently with the first six months of the scheme, from 1st April 2010 to 30th September 2010. Registration packs will now be issued to all organisations affected by the CRC in July 2009.
  
  

  As such, the first year of the scheme (1st April 2010 – 31st March 2011) will be considered a preliminary period, or ‘Footprint Year’. Throughout this period, organisations will need to monitor consumption information from all energy sources. Collected data will then be used to prepare a comprehensive ‘Footprint Report’, which will need to be submitted by July 2011.
  
  

  Further information regarding the Carbon Reduction Commitment can be found at www.defra.gov.uk and www.decc.gov.uk. UPL is currently working with several of the UK’s larger corporations which already know they are going to be captured by the CRC.