New Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting Guidance Download

5 March 2019  |  Carbon Footprint  |  Emma Littlewood  |  Leave a comment

If you’d like help with Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting please ring us on 020 70960054 or 07977 517128 or email Emma to work out the best solution for your company.

Green Element provide a thorough service ensuring that your needs are met. We have our own in-house user-friendly carbon footprinting and benchmarking online tool, Compare Your Footprint. Call us for a quote.

What is Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR)?

Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) is the greenhouse gas reporting scheme which has replaced the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) (April 2019).  SECR is part of a package of changes announced by the government to reduce the burden of reporting while incentivising energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions.

The legislative framework is the update to Companies Act 2018

The government has published an update to its mandatory greenhouse gas emissions reporting guidance which you can download here.

Who will be required to report?

• Applicable to all quoted companies and large UK incorporated unquoted companies with at least 250 employees or annual turnover greater than £36m and annual balance sheet total greater than £18m (two criteria or more must apply).
• Organisations using low levels of energy (less than 40,000 kWh per annum) can opt out.
• Inclusion of Limited Liability Partnerships.

An increase in the Climate Change Levy (CCL) has already been announced to compensate for the treasury’s lost revenues from closing the CRC scheme. This will increase to 0.847 p/kWh as opposed to 0.583 p/kWh for electricity, similar percentage increases were announced for the other qualifying fuels.

What energy and carbon information must be reported?

• Mandatory reporting of energy use and associated Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions on an annual basis via the current system of company accounts reporting.
• Energy in the scope of the new SECR legislation includes all UK electricity, gas, and transport energy use.
• For the GHG calculations, details of the methodology and a suitable carbon intensity metric must also be included.
• For large unquoted companies the scope of SECR will include all energy use within the UK
• For quoted companies registered in the UK the scope will continue to include global energy use and carbon emissions
• Companies will be required to report on energy efficiency actions taken over the previous year
• SECR will allow exemptions from disclosing their SECR information where it is not practical to do so. There will also be an exemption from disclosing information which the organisation’s directors think would be damaging to the interests of the company.

What does this mean for my organisation?

The impacts of the new legislation will vary depending on your current non financial reporting requirements:

If you are already reporting under Mandatory Carbon Reporting (MCR), the only change is the inclusion of energy use and energy efficiency measures in the reporting requirements.

If you are reporting and purchasing carbon allocations in the CRC scheme, the SECR regulations will replace the reporting side of CRC and the charging will be replaced by increased Climate Change Levy (CCL)

Those private sector organisations who don’t fall into either scheme will see the largest change.  Now that unquoted large organisations will have to include environmental data in their annual strategic report, this will introduce annual public disclosure of UK energy use and carbon emissions to in excess of 11,000 organisations, up from approximately 1,600 required to report for MCR.

From April 2019, many large unquoted companies will have to report on energy and carbon for the first time. Navigating the complex reporting landscape, gathering the necessary data from energy and transport suppliers, calculating the greenhouse gas emissions using the correct carbon conversion facts, and translating the energy saving opportunities into measurable action can appear a large challenge.

Green Element is here to make the process easy and smooth.  We have a team of experts in energy management, energy reducing strategies, data capture and our own in-house user-friendly carbon footprinting and benchmarking online tool, Compare Your Footprint

If you’d like help please ring us on 020 70960054 or 07977 517128  or email Emma to work out the best solution for your company.