SETTING STANDARDS FOR CARBON


REDUCTION By Rob Hine, BSI


There can be no doubt that it is in the interest of all commercial and public organisations to reduce their carbon emissions, but the largest users of energy have a particular incentive in the form of the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC). Official estimates are that this scheme, which came into force in April 2010, will affect around 20,000 UK organisations, of which 5,000 will be required by law to participate fully.


This means that they will have to monitor their emissions and buy “allowances” from the government for each tonne of CO2 they emit. The organisations will also be featured in an officially published league table, where their position will depend on how well they have performed in reducing their emissions.


It was originally intended that the money collected by the sale of allowances to participating organisations would be “ re-cycled” back to


participants, based on their


position on the


performance league table, thereby


providing a strong financial incentive to achieve a good league table position. As part of the government’s spending review in October 2010, however, it was announced that these repayments would not now be made; instead the government will retain the money it raises to be put towards reducing the UK’s public finances.


While this has indisputably made the CRC scheme less appealing to many organisations, it’s important to note that the scheme hasn’t gone away and there are still very good reasons for wanting to achieve good performance in line with its objectives.


Not the least of these is that reducing carbon emissions means using less energy, which in turn means lower energy bills and fewer allowances to buy. Many organisations will also want to achieve a good rating in the league table to demonstrate to their peers and their customers the success of their efforts to protect the environment.


Unsurprisingly, this means that energy management is still in the spotlight. Indeed, in a survey recently carried out by BSI (British Standards Institution), 78% of respondents said that energy management was either important or very important to their organisations, and also indicated that they expected it to increase in importance in the future. But how can effective energy management be achieved, and how can its results be unequivocally confirmed?


There are, of course, many approaches to managing energy, some of which are more effective than others. One of the best, however, is to implement a system based on the new BS EN 16001 standard, which builds upon existing standards and initiatives and represents the latest best practice in energy management.


Similar in format to the ISO 14001 standard for environmental management that covers the full range of environmental impacts, BS EN 16001 specifies the requirements for an energy management system that will enable an organisation to develop an energy management policy, identify its most significant areas of energy consumption and target energy reductions, implement controls and check the effectiveness of processes and procedures through monitoring. It also makes provision for management reviews as an aid to ensuring continual improvement.


In short, BS EN 16001 provides an excellent framework for measures to help organisations identify, manage and reduce energy usage and really embed energy


|40| ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE


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