Meet The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme

Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by Ross in Government Policy, Industry News, United Kingdom

UPDATE: The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme is now active, and now if the time for strategy. Check out our 4 Business Reasons (and our bonus super-CRC’ret Special Reason!) for immediate CRC action!

The Carbon Reduction Commitment is dead! Long live the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme!

What: you haven’t heard of either of them? (40% of UK businesses are in the same boat!)

Well, if you’re a business owner in the UK then you should start finding out more today, since the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme is the government’s new name for their carbon cap-and-trade scheme due to start in April, and last week finally saw the details solidify on the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s primary weapon in the war to force businesses into greater energy efficiency.

As many as 5,000 businesses are expected to be forced to participate in the mandatory legislation, which will require companies to audit their carbon emissions and pay for carbon allowances to cover those emissions. The CRC scheme is revenue-neutral, with many companies standing to profit from their inclusion.

To find out whether or not your business will be included in the scheme, check out this CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme Guide.

After months of deliberation with businesses, the government has at last released the latest draft proposal - likely to be the last revisions prior to the start of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme next spring. The most noticeable change to the previous system is the rebranded name: the government’s primary goal in instigating the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme is to incentivise energy efficient technology in order to minimise energy usage in the industrial and commercial sectors, and the new name certainly clears up the ambiguity facing business leaders as they try to prepare for the rammifications of the scheme.

Other key changes include the abandonment of the double carbon quota purchase due in April 2011 and the augmenting of the Early Action metric which will benefit businesses which have already taken steps to reduce their absolute carbon emissions through effective projects like energy-efficient lighting retrofits. The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme Early Action qualification criteria has also been extended past the Carbon Trust Standard to other equivalent schemes, and the government has also held firm against calls for inclusion of renewable energy sources into the CRC scheme.

Most of the originally proposed scheme is still very much in place, so for anyone wishing to learn more about what the scheme is and how it affects businesses and public bodies, as well as potentially rewarding companies for their inclusion, an comprehensive overview is available which you should read here.

Image background from the Eden Project by Ross Tucknott