From today more than 5,000 public and private sector organisations across the UK need to start complying with the government's Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC). Affected are organisations with annual electricity bills totalling approximately £1m or more which all must start measuring and accurately reporting their energy usage to government auditors.
These include many public sector bodies such as councils, all government departments, schools and universities. Those that submit late or inaccurate data could be penalised and publicly chastised for those failures.
Although public sector organisations have had months to prepare for the CRC, it seems that about two-thirds are currently misstating their carbon numbers by a margin that will incur fines. Many have trundled along believing they have measured their carbon, but the CRC requires greater accuracy than most have had until now.
And it is only with accurate information that organisations can move more solidly onto carbon management and carbon reduction planning.
It is true that taking action to cut carbon emissions is much more difficult in a financial environment of potentially large cuts. However, public bodies can do a lot by just reducing waste and that's where organisations should start. It might be boring, but there's a massive amount to be achieved.
Once organisations have done the simple things, like turning down the heating and switching off the lights, they can start to invest. Some of those investments will have a short pay-back time, but many won't. In practice, this means that the focus will be on actions that produce fast results. Putting solar panels and windmills on top of town halls will probably have to wait, while some simpler, more cost-effective things can be done.
The wider efficiency agenda could help deliver some improvements, not least the Total Place programme to improve cross-public sector joint working and savings. In particular, greater sharing of buildings could both cut costs and emissions. Putting the emphasis on greater efficiency, particularly, on asset management, will bring results very quickly.
Let's not forget that the next deadline looms: from April 2011, the government will publish league tables ranking participants on their success at managing and reducing their carbon emissions. This will inform a bonus and penalty system that effectively sees money from the worst performers given to those nearer the top, to reward their performance.
Jonathan Gorrie is a director in KPMG's public sector sustainability team. KPMG has published Step by step, a guide to the Carbon Reduction Commitment
