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I have been in the industry over 38 years and have seen many changes with how the UK manages the energy from technology to services and just of late tough complex legislation drivers.
Organisations need to embrace legislation to help drive down the UK Carbons emissions with the benefits of reducing their bottom line. It has always been a known ‘Rule of Thumb’ that organisations should either engage with an ‘Energy Consultant’ or employ an ‘Energy Manager’ if the energy spend breaches £1M.
The UK Energy market is a complex industry with many legislation tasks that affect every organisation in the UK, especially those who own properties. Though energy is in most cases a business’s third large expenses companies struggle to either understand what needs to be done or struggle to find the time to deliver them.
The UK government have recently launched new energy legislation in April 2019 which, actually runs parallel with the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) it is called Streamlined Energy Carbon Reporting (SECR) which replaces the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency
Scheme and requires organisations to report energy and carbon emissions in their annual report.
Where the CRC applied to around 4,000 businesses, the SECR regulations will apply to an estimated 11,900 companies across the UK, increasing awareness further through the need to gather energy data.
It will mean greater focus will need to be applied to their energy consumption and what their Carbon Footprint is to deliver their services or their products.
In addition, the SECR guidelines say that businesses are required to comment on any energy efficiency projects and provide a narrative description of the principal measures taken to increase energy efficiency during the relevant financial year.
This means that an organisation’s actions in this the area of energy efficiency implementation will now be public and must be meaningful informative and be appropriate with the size and level of energy use of the business.
It is the first time legislation aligns the organisation with an energy consultant or an employed Energy Manager, with their accountants. The Government also believes that making organisations report their energy consumption in a public way will help them drive down carbon emissions in the UK.
So, who needs to comply with SECR?
SECR will apply to all quoted companies (those whose shares are listed on the stock exchange) and large UK companies with over 250 employees or annual turnover of more than £36m or an annual balance sheet of over £18m.
Public sector organisations are exempt from SECR, and private companies that can provide evidence that they use less than 40,000kWh in a year will not be required to.
Some Key facts from The Committee on Climate Change:
•In 2019, the UK Government legislated the level of the 2050 target in line with the Committee’s advice. That commits the UK to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 100% compared to 1990 levels (up from a previous commitment of 80%).
• UK emissions have continued to fall since the Climate Change Act was passed in 2008. In 2018, the UK’s emissions were 44% below 1990 levels, while the economy grew by two- thirds over the same period. The UK has met the first two carbon budgets (2008-12 and 2013-17) and is on track to meeting the third (2018-22).
This article has been provided by B2B Energy Ltd and is an extract from ‘The Global Energy Expert’ Training and book. 18th March 2020