The Environment Agency (EA) gave an update on the ESOS compliance and intent to comply statistics last week. Statistics quoted mean that 3,000 eligible companies are still thought not to have complied or submitted an ‘intent to comply’ declaration.
Jo Scully, ESOS Project Manager at the EA told Energy Live News that as of the original deadline 5th December:
- The Environment Agency had received 6,500 notifications
- 4,000 said they had fully complied
- 2,500 confirmed they intended to comply by 29th January, of which several hundred had since submitted
- That leaves around 3,000 companies still to comply or submit an intent to comply
In October, the EA announced it wouldn’t take any enforcement action for late notification until the end of January 2016 but that deadline is fast approaching. Final informal warnings have been sent to organisations still not engaged with ESOS at the beginning of 2016. Ms Scully explained the EA’s position on future enforcement of the scheme:
“We think we’ve taken a fair approach and we’ve reflected the fact that this is the first compliance period for the scheme and there’s a lot of organisations captured by ESOS that won’t have been required to participate in other similar climate change regimes or indeed environmental regulations so to them this is quite a new process.
“We believe our approach is fair but we will use our enforcement powers to bring into compliance those that fail to comply by the 29th and continue to not engage with us.”
Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS)
The ESOS scheme affects around 10,000 large organisations in the UK and requires them to submit audits of the energy used by their buildings, industrial processes and transport to identify savings.
As a new scheme, companies have been reluctant to participate and many seemed to hope that the scheme would be abandoned, but that is not the case.
Interview with Jo Scully, ESOS Project Manager at the EA
Last Minute ESOS Advice
Businesses who haven’t complied should engage with the EA “sooner rather than later” as showing interest in the scheme would be seen positively. Ms Scully told Energy Live News at the Energy Institute’s conference in London:
“We’re realistic about the fact there will be some organisations out there that have not engaged yet, that have not started their ESOS journey so they need to, as a minimum, engage with us via the notification portals – either to tell us that they’re compliant and they have just not submitted their notification or to tell us that they intend to comply and by when they think that will be to give us a realistic date for that.
“If organisations have engaged with us that will stand them in a better position when we are deciding on a course of action.”
She added the EA has started auditing those organisations that have confirmed they are compliant and will be looking into those that haven’t “as a priority”.
The intent to comply form is still available – see our link below:
ESOS Audits by Business Surveyor
Business Juice’s Business Surveyor experts will help you to understand your ESOS requirements with sensible and informed advice on what to do next.
If you wish to engage our services, we can arrange professional ESOS audits carried out by trained Business Surveyors; catering for businesses of all shapes, sizes and industries and including transport and process audits where required.
For an ESOS quote or advice on submitting your late notification form, give Business Juice a call on 0800 051 5492 or email esos@businessjuice.co.uk.