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Experts have warned that many companies will miss the deadlines for the government’s climate change legislation and could be hit with large fines.
The introduction of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme has been met with apathy by industry, with less than a quarter of the firms due to register for the scheme doing so in its first two months of operation.
Figures released last week by the Environment Agency revealed that only 3,500, or 17.5%, of the 20,000 large organisations expected to register had done so, leading to further criticism of the already controversial scheme.
Companies and public organisations have until the end of September to register with the Environment Agency. Failure to do so could result in a £5,000 fine, increasing by £500 every extra day.
Repeatedly providing misinformation could eventually result in a custodial sentence.
The Environment Ag-ency has already extended one deadline. Large corporations which wish to “disaggregate” subsidiary companies to report each subsidiary’s individual energy usage were expected to have registered by the end of last month but now have until the end of July.
Energy firm RWE Npower warned that industry has to act fast to meet the carbon deadlines.
Dave Lewis, head of business energy services at Npower, said: “The slow rate of registration indicates that many organisations may not be actively tracking their energy use.
“Compiling all the data needed to register for CRC is no small task and time is running out. The summer months are when internal resources are typically lower because of holidays. Any organisation that hasn’t progressed with its CRC evidence pack could be up against it,” Lewis says.
Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, said a simpler scheme was needed.