CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme - boon or burden?

Strategic Issues - England and Wales

Background

Over the last 10 years the way in which energy is generated and used in the UK has come under increasing scrutiny for a number of reasons, including a rise in the awareness of the impacts of climate change and issues in relation to energy security.

In 2005 Defra and HM Treasury published the Energy Efficiency Innovation Review, which identified the significant potential for cost effective energy efficiency measures to be introduced in relation to the activities of large, non-energy intensive organisations. In 2006 the DTI Energy Review announced that this would be a key area for the future and introduced an initial public consultation on a proposed mandatory emissions trading scheme. By the time the Energy White Paper appeared in 2007, the government had taken a decision to introduce a mandatory cap and trade scheme, ‘a Carbon Reduction Commitment, to target large, non-energy intensive public and private sector UK organisations’.

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Lawyers

This article was written by Noel Doran and first appeared in Environmental Law & Management Volume 22 Issue 2: April - May 2010.