TO coincide with the introduction of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, which starts today (1 April) and requires all businesses spending £500,000 or more on their energy bills to cut their carbon footprint or be fined for non-compliance, the Carbon Trust’s Best Advice campaign is encouraging firms to start saving money through energy efficiency measures.
The free advice on offer is available in one of two ways. For businesses spending over £50,000 a year on energy, the Carbon Trust provides in-depth, on-site surveys conducted by an accredited surveyor. The surveyor assesses every aspect of energy consumption, from heating, lighting and IT, to core plant machinery.
For businesses spending less than £50,000 a year on energy, the Carbon Trust offers free advice through an online tutorial (www.carbontrust.co.uk/onlinetraining). The video tutorial provides easy-to-follow advice on how business can cut energy bills and save money. It helps users calculate the savings they can make at their workplace and develop an action plan to achieve them.
Both of these services are free of charge and provide clear, practical action plans to start reducing energy costs almost immediately through simple, low-cost and/or no-cost measures.
In addition, the Environment Agency, which is committed to providing as much information as possible on the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, has produced new documents which contain information for CRC participants on preparing and submitting an annual report and a footprint report, both of which will have to be submitted by around 5,000 CRC participants in July 2011.
Further supporting documents have also been published which explain the rules of CRC and cover areas such as organizational change, estimation techniques, supply rules and the interaction of the EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) and Climate Change Act with CRC.
New tools for CRC participants are also available, including a spreadsheet that allows the storage (in a single file) of energy supply data for the footprint and annual reports; and guidance and templates for setting up and maintaining an evidence pack.
Tony Grayling, head of climate change at the Environment Agency, said: ‘Around 20,000 organizations are now gearing up to register for CRC between 1 April and 30 September 2010; of these about 5,000 will be full participants in the scheme.
‘This new information provides further information to help guide participants through the next stage in the CRC process in preparing reports due for submission in July 2011.
For more information on the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme or to find out how your organization is affected, contact the Environment Agency CRC helpdesk at: [email protected]
