Thoughts

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ESOS Phase 2 – time to start planning!

Thoughts

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    EVORA

It is now just two years to the day until the ESOS Phase 2 compliance deadline of 5 December 2019. Don’t be complacent – two years might sound like a long time away, but you will save time, stress, and money if you start taking action now by carrying out energy audits. Read on!


The Environment Agency, Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) and Natural Resources Wales (NRW) have jointly advised organisations that they should all start now carrying out energy audits as part of the compliance process for ESOS Phase 2.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Just two years to go until ESOS Phase 2 compliance deadline – start carrying out energy audits now!” quote=”With just two years to go until ESOS Phase 2 compliance deadline – start carrying out energy audits now!”]

With only a few exemptions for public bodies, the regulations require all other large UK organisations to take three important steps before the compliance date of 5 December 2019 for ESOS Phase 2:

  1. measure their total energy consumption;
  2. conduct audits to identify cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities; and
  3. report compliance to their national scheme administrator – the Environment Agency in England, SEPA in Scotland, NIEA in Northern Ireland and NRW in Wales.

Consideration should also be given at this early stage as to whether adopting an approved energy management system such as ISO50001 may be a more suitable route to achieving compliance (ISO50001 is the internationally recognised standard for best practice in energy management).

If you plan to implement ISO5001, then early action is definitely required. Alternatively organisations caught under the ESOS regulations should now start conducting audits to identify their cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities for ESOS Phase 2.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Organisations should start conducting audits to identify energy efficiency opportunities for Phase 2″ quote=”Organisations should now start conducting audits to identify their cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities for Phase 2″]

Early action should avoid some of the issues and that occurred during the first phase of ESOS. According to Carbon Trust, around 2,800 organisations had to send notifications advising that they would be late in reporting compliance, and a number were ultimately fined.

Carbon Trust also reported that of the hundreds of compliance audits conducted for Phase 1, it was found that that just 16 percent of participants were fully compliant. A full three-quarters of audited participants needed to undertake remedial actions in order to become compliant.

A full three-quarters of audited participants needed to undertake remedial actions in order to become compliant.

The Environment Agency has also indicated that in England there were approximately 500 organisations that qualified for ESOS in the first phase but had not engaged with the scheme. There have been over 300 enforcement notifications sent out to date, more will be going out in the near future. Civil penalty proceedings have also been commenced against a number of non-compliant organisations.

During the first phase of ESOS, EVORA helped a number of organisations to comply with the regulation and we would concur with the Carbon trust’s reported findings that cost-effective measures could usually cut energy costs in buildings, transport fleets and industrial processes by about 20 percent.

ESOS reports have been proven to identify real energy saving opportunities. Good governance requires that Directors consider the report recommendations.

Further reading on ESOS:

ESOS Phase 2 Practical Hints and Tips


The EVORA team is ready to support you with ESOS Phase 2 compliance. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch to learn more.