CRC

CRC - Carbon Reduction Commitment

The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) is a new scheme, which will apply to large commercial and public sector organisations including supermarkets, hotel chains, government departments and large local authority buildings.

The CRC will target emissions from energy use from large non-energy intensive organisations in both the public and the private sector whose annual mandatory half hourly metered electricity use is above 6,000MWh – focusing on those emissions outside the Climate Change Agreements (CCAs) and outside the direct emissions covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). In addition, firms with more than 25% of their energy use emissions in Climate Change Agreements would be completely exempt.

CRC is scheduled to come into effect in April 2010. It is a cap and trade scheme which is designed to create a shift in awareness, behaviour and infrastructure. The scheme will involve approximately 5,000 organisations - up to 100 in Northern Ireland.

By driving energy efficiency, the CRC will deliver emissions reductions cost-effectively, saving participants money, and enabling sustainable growth. This will yield a benefit to participants of £1billion by 2020.Participants will also be rewarded for their improvements in energy efficiency by receiving a revenue recycling payment. Performance in the scheme will also be made public, adding a reputational incentive for participating organisations.

Further information on CRC can be found at the Defra CRC website here

Queries on the Carbon Reduction Commitment

If you have any queries on the CRC, please direct them to the Environment Agency here

CRC Seminar - Belfast, 26th March 2009

A seminar to explain how CRC works in practice for particpants was held in Belfast on 26th March 2009. Presentations from this seminar can be found here -

CRC Seminar presentations

Consultation on the Draft Order to Implement the Carbon Reduction Commitment

The third and final consultation on the development of the scheme ran from 12 March 2009 and closed at 17:00 on Thursday 04 June 2009. The Government will publish a response to this after the summer. The documents can still be viewed below:

Letter to Consultees (173KB)

Draft Order (524KB)

Draft Order Summary (156KB)

Consultation Document (1.9MB)

Consultation Response Form (312KB)

UK Regulatory Impact Assessment (648KB)

User Guide (4.83MB)

The User Guide is still a draft document that will be revised over the course of 2009 to incorporate any changes that may occur following the consultation. Should you have any feedback about how to improve the Guide, please  email the CRC Team at crc2009consultation@decc.gsi.gov.uk