UK’s CRC scheme registration seen low due to lack of clarity

The Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC), which has come into force from April this year, has left UK businesses confused even as the deadline for registration closed last month.

A group of businesses met in London for the latest in a series of Sustainable Business round table debates, to discuss their modalities of compliance with the CRC and the general feeling among leaders that included the likes of BAA, Transport for London, Asda and Cemex, was that the mechanism was still not perfect.

Among the complaints aired at the meeting was that the league table was unfair to those companies that had already done a substantial amount of energy efficiency work. Such companies would likely be placed lower down the league table than those that are about to take up the energy reduction programmes.

Concerns were also raised about the complexity of the regulation, that had sapped resources and made it difficult for the communication of the impact of the scheme in boardrooms.

The discussion served to underscore fears that the CRC has failed to focus minds on cutting energy rather than on complying with a new piece of regulation. Moreover, the scheme was seen to represent a way to penalise growth in industry given there is no way of normalising the emissions data.

The detail of how the scheme is supposed to work has still not been finalised, particularly for the later phases of the scheme, and the government has not made it clear what changes, if any, would be made.