Act now says nPower, otherwise risk facing penalties of a financial and reputational nature.

The stark warning from the energy giant comes because it believes that many companies and public sector organisations are just not ready for the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme deadlines.

nPower has issued its advice after the Environment Agency confirmed that of those companies and organisations which will included in full in the scheme, less than 10% have bothered to register. By 21 June, only 447 out of a total of 5,000 of those companies expected to participate in the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme had signed up.

And if they don’t register by the first deadline of 31 July, 2010, one of the big advantages they’ll miss out on is being able to register dissimilar businesses within the same group. This is a concession that nowadays many industrial conglomerates are made up of very different subsidiaries in varying business sectors and that they should be treated as individual entities. This is known as the disaggregation option.

Head of business energy services at nPower, Dave Lewis, said:
“The disaggregation option might seem like a simple administrative task, but it could potentially be a valuable route for many businesses. CRC participation is typically established at a group level, but being able to register companies separately could make collating data and submitting ongoing evidence packs simpler.

“There’s also the reputational benefits to consider. If the parent company’s name is little known publicly, for example, it could miss out on the brand value of a high position in the Carbon Reduction Commitment league table.

“Bearing in mind the registrations that have been completed to date, we expect many to miss out on disaggregation, and instead be faced with managing Carbon Reduction Commitment at a group level. This will bring its own challenges as data will need to be compiled and submitted for the whole group.

“The slow rate of registration so far also indicates that many organisations may not be actively tracking their energy use from 1st April this year in preparation for the year end footprint report. The longer organisations take to track this, the more challenging the task will become.”

And the penalties for not signing up to the scheme are quite severe. For those companies and organisations who miss the final deadline of 30 September, 2010, a fine of £5,000 will be levied. And a further £500 will be charged every working day past the 30 September deadline, subject to a maximum 80 days.

Guest Article by Neil Camp