Making sense of complex legislation and regulations: ensuring essential processes, strategies and responses are always up to date.
Organisations trust Consultus to help them understand and respond to the latest legislation and rules on energy efficiency, carbon emissions, building regulations and more: to achieve measurable benefits and avoid penalties without incurring a serious administrative burden.
Our Compliance and Accreditation team is available to ensure compliance processes, strategies and responses are always up to date.
In many cases, we are also delivering Bureau Services and Bill Validation, including data on our client’s consumption and costs, so we can align these insights with compliance activity to enable our clients to take demand reduction, environmental and carbon commitment reductions even further: into proactive energy management programmes that deliver long-term value.
Helping our commercial and public sector clients to navigate through the maze of statutory, legislative and voluntary requirements, we work in the following areas of Compliance and Accreditation:
The Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting framework relating to public disclosure of carbon and energy use will apply to all quoted companies and large UK incorporated unquoted companies. The reporting framework follows the closure of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme and applies throughout the UK and is likely to impact nearly 12,000 businesses.
The purpose of Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting is for organisations to get clear visibility of their energy use and emissions and provides the right data to be able to adopt energy efficiency measures to reduce their impact on climate change.
Your business will need to report, as of April 2019 if:
What does Reporting include?
Quoted Companies:
Large UK Companies & LLPs:
*Scope 3 emissions associated to business travel in rental cars or employee-owned vehicles where they are responsible for purchasing fuel. Other Scope 3 emissions are voluntary.
Who is exempt from SECR?
Is there a deadline?
Is the Scheme Enforced?
The Conduct Committee of the Financial Reporting Council is responsible for monitoring compliance of company reports and accounts with relevant reporting requirements, the Conduct Committee can:
Phase 3
The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) is a mandatory energy assessment and energy saving identification scheme for large undertakings (and their corporate groups). The scheme applies throughout the UK and is likely to impact 10,000 businesses.
Your business will be affected, if on the 31st December 2022:
Key ESOS Requirements:
Who is exempt from ESOS?
What does an Energy Audit include?
What are the Benefits of ESOS Audit?
Is there a deadline?
Is the Scheme Enforced?
Phase 2
If you think you were required to have complied with the second phase of ESOS (which should have been completed and reported to the Environment Agency by 5th December 2019) please get in touch as we can still support you in completing the required ESOS assessments.
CCAs are voluntary agreements made between UK industry and the government’s Environment Agency, aimed at reducing energy usage and carbon dioxide emissions. CCA’s were established to enable eligible energy-intensive sectors such as manufacturing to reduce the cost of the Climate Change Levy (CCL), a standing charge on energy and gas bills, in return for committing to pre-determined energy efficiency targets.
CCAs are available for a range of energy intensity industry types such as agriculture, manufacturing and engineering. Organisations holding a CCA can reduce Climate Change Levy costs by 92% on electricity bills and 81% on gas and other fuels.
CCA scheme extended until March 2025
On the 16th April this year, the BEIS launched a consultation that set out the Governments proposals for extending the current Climate Change Agreements (CCA) scheme a further two years to March 2025 and would be re-opened to new entrants for a set period.
The Government sought views on these potential reforms and received 101 responses, highlighting the strong interest of businesses and other stakeholders in this area. These are some of the decisions made by the Government following the consultation:
Our expert team including Carbon Consultants and highly experienced Data Analysts work alongside Consultus clients to develop a robust CCA application, which is then submitted to the Environment Agency. Following approval of an application, our team then completes and submits the forms required to enable relief on CCL charges.
The CHP Quality Assurance programme (CHPQA) is a voluntary scheme designed to provide a practical method to assess all types and sizes of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) schemes in the UK. The simultaneous generation of heat and power in a single process is one of the most cost-effective ways to make carbon savings, and is seen to play plays a key role in environmental programmes. CHP schemes are assessed on the basis of their energy efficiency and environmental performance, ensuring the associated fiscal benefits are in line with real-life environmental performance. Our expert team supports clients in achieving successful CHPQA certification, from programme registration onwards. This grants eligibility to a range of benefits including Renewable Obligation Certificates, Renewable Heat Incentive, Carbon Price Floor (heat) relief, Climate Change Levy (CCL) exemption, Enhanced Capital Allowances and preferential Business Rates.
The EU ETS was the world’s first major carbon market and still its largest. Consultus expertise can help to ensure that organisations can engage with the system in the most effective and focused ways. Now in its third phase (2013-2020), the system is intended to ensure carbon emissions are cut where it costs the least to do so, with a robust carbon price promoting investment in cleaner low-carbon technologies. EU ETS works on the cap and trade principle. A cap is set on the total amount of certain greenhouse gases that can be emitted, which is reduced over time so total emissions fall. Within this cap, organisations receive or buy emission allowances they can trade with each other, and are able to buy limited amounts of international credits from emission-saving projects around the world. A limit on the allowances available ensures their value. After each year, an organisation has to surrender enough allowances to cover all emissions to avoid fines. If the organisation reduces emissions, it can retain spare allowances to cover future needs or sell them to another organisation that is running short of allowances.
Air conditioning (AC) inspections are a legal requirement under the Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations (EPBR). The objective is to improve the energy efficiency of commercial and public buildings, and reduce carbon emissions. If your organisation has a total installed air conditioning capacity of 12kW or more, it must be inspected to ensure it meets performance standards. Consultus experts are accredited CIBSE Air Conditioning Inspectors and fully qualified to conduct detailed assessments of systems. This can form part of wider efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, driving down energy consumption and saving money on energy bills.