by Gareth Stace, Head of Climate & Environment Policy
9. September 2010 11:33
With just days to go until the registration deadline for the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) at the end of September, Gregory Barker, the climate change minister is calling for radical reform of this much maligned scheme.
This is welcome news, that the new government can plainly see the scheme is far too complex and costly and Gregory Barker is bold enough to consider making significant changes in order to achieve the aims of the scheme, but with much less burden on firms, as they continue to recover from the recession.
I hear from the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), that the whole scheme is up for review, but there may be a particular focus on simplifying the way in which an organisation defines itself and making it easier for those organisations to opt out of the scheme, if some of their sites are caught by other climate change legislation.
Another simple change the minister should consider is not requiring firms that aren’t even in the scheme to pay nearly a thousand pounds, just to confirm this. That is without the administrative burden that this un-necessary task imposes on those organisations.
If this is the way that DECC is moving, then perhaps we are closer now to a climate change policy landscape that is cost effective, that aims to achieve realistic goals at least cost and does not undermine the competitiveness of UK/EU manufacturing sectors. Something that EEF has been calling for and I hope that now, something that government is alive to.