CARBON REDUCTION COMMITMENT

COMMITMENT

ISSUES?

Reducing the UK’s carbon emissions is high on the Government’s agenda but the burden of complying with tough new targets now falls upon facilities managers. Richard Scott of E.ON’s Sustainable Energy business weighs up the challenges.

A

s any engaged couple will attest, fear of commitment can lead to last minute jitters. In a similar fashion, with much debate and a last minute

change of name, the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme finally came into force on April 1. Designed to deliver carbon dioxide (CO2

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emission reductions primarily from large non-energy intensive organisations across the public and private sector, the scheme employs financial penalties and rewards depending on actual reductions. Furthermore, relative performance will be published in league tables, naming and shaming those organisations failing to achieve improvements but also promoting those that perform well.

One of the driving forces behind the regulations has been a European Directive ruling that all buildings must achieve an almost zero carbon energy performance by the year 2020. This has been ratified as a central part of the UK’s strategy to become more energy efficient and so reduce CO2

emissions, as set out in the

Climate Change Act 2008 which requires emissions to fall 34% by 2020. After much consultation, led by the Department of the Environment and Climate Change (DECC), the baton for administration of the scheme now passes to the Environment Agency. A mandatory carbon emissions trading scheme covers all organisations using more than 6,000MWh per year of electricity, roughly equivalent to an annual electricity bill of about £500,000 and expected to cover around 20,000 businesses and public sector organisations.

While the first year of the scheme requires only reporting – the short timescales between clarity on the requirements and introduction, has caused frustration amongst many organisations due to the lack of time to make changes.

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SUSTAINABLE FM | APRIL 2010

For facilities managers cash flow planning, along with a new burden of reporting extensively on total energy consumption, presents a steep challenge. It is vital that total energy use is accurately monitored to provide full compliance with the new regulations, but also to ensure potential savings can be identified and realised. Equally, it’s important that employees across the wider organisation understand how their behaviour can lead to cost savings.

KEEPING COSTS DOWN

Understanding, forecasting and identifying commodity savings is of course one of the core tasks of all facilities managers but, as many will attest, energy consumption can be one of the trickiest to pin down. Indeed, a survey last autumn from enterprise applications vendor SAP suggested that only a third of businesses were fully prepared to do this.

The threat of fines, heightened interest in corporate social responsibility and the impact of their organisation languishing at the bottom of CRC league tables are

driving many facilities managers to identify more effective approaches to energy efficiency and reduced emissions in public and private buildings. At the same time, facilities managers face a challenge in demonstrating to their organisations that such investments need not be won at the expense of financial prudence and that they produce a clear return on that investment when fully considering the lifetime cost of regulations like CRC and the overall reduction in energy bills.

SHARING THE BURDEN

In response to the needs of facilities managers for a rapid and simple fix to the demands of the CRC scheme, E.ON’s Sustainable Energy business and Self Energy UK have launched the Energy Performance Guarantee (EPG) – a ‘no gain, no fee’ service to help businesses drive down costs and meet Government carbon targets.

The jointly developed service helps Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36