carboncheck™ CRC can help with you manage and comply with the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC).

Many organisations are gearing up for the challenges posed by the CRC. The scheme requires large, non energy intensive organisations to start reporting their carbon footprint and will impose reduction targets on organisations through the administration of a cap and trade system. Organisations will be required to purchase allowances on an annual basis to cover their emissions where 1 allowance equates to 1 tonne of CO2. They will initially be able to purchase allowances from the government. In future years trading will be extended to a secondary market. If companies exceed their allocation then they may need to purchase additional allowances from organisations (possibly including competitors) who have overachieved and have allowances to spare.

carboncheck™ CRC can help with your CRC compliance efforts by:

• Registration and Information Disclosure - captures specific required information including company registration information details, can manage complex organisation structures, HHM meter details, Significant Group Undertakings (SGU), details of mergers or demergers
• Allowances - managing the purchase and surrender of CRC allowances
• Annual/Footprint report - capture of CRC specific data including all energy use emissions, excluded emissions, CCA excluded members, core and residual emissions and emissions covered by CCA or EU ETS
• Evidence pack - carboncheck CRC captures evidence pack information that is a requirement of the scheme. This includes organisational structure details as well as data records showing energy use by meter and supplier
• Reports - as well as the Footprint report, carboncheck CRC also provides reports for the Absolute metric and the Growth metric that are used to determine the overall league table positions
• Developing a carbon reduction strategy that minimises financial and reputational exposure for your company

Additional CRC information

How do we know if we qualify?

In general, if you use 6,000 MWh of half-hourly metered electricity then you meet the qualification requirement. However, there are exceptions. If one of your facilities is currently regulated through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme or if you have a Climate Change Agreement (CCA) with HMRC in place then this facility may be exempt.

If you have meters that are settled on the half-hourly market then the Environment Agency should have contacted you. If they have not then this does not necessarily mean that you are not required to participate.

What emissions are included?

Once an organisation has qualified, all core sources will be included:

• Half-hourly metered electricity
• Electricity from Class 5 - 8 meters
• Gas, including daily and non-daily reads

An organisation must have at least 90% of its emissions covered by either CRC, EU ETS or CCA

What are the implications for my organisation?

The price of allowances will initially be set at £12 per tonne for the first phase from April 2010 to March 2011. However, a sealed bid auction process will be implemented from April 2012 as well as a secondary market for trading allowances.

A league table of carbon performance will be published. Clearly this could have very positive or very negative brand impacts depending upon where you factor in the table.

Revenue payments will be recycled to participating organisations in October 2011 three months after the first footprint report has been received in July 2011. The amount of revenue recycled will be dependant upon your league table position.

In order to maximise your league table position it is extremely important to take action now as a key factor in determining league table position is the Early Action metric. This metric is based upon measures that the organisation implements BEFORE April 2011.