The Carbon Trust has a duty to ensure that our public funding delivers the greatest impact in terms of our mission to accelerate the move to a low carbon economy. That means, wherever possible, leveraging in private sector investment and funding to enable our public funding to go further and deliver the greatest carbon savings both now and in the future.
We recognise that we are now in a time of austerity and that public funding will continue to be constrained for the foreseeable future. As a result, all parts of our business are being asked, over the coming year, to reduce costs in support of our ongoing commitment to deliver value for money.
In addition, we have always believed that, over time, the Carbon Trust should introduce more paid for services as the market develops and customers become more willing to fund our carbon reduction services. We began this journey in 2005 by part charging for our Carbon Management services and two years ago we launched the Carbon Trust Standard.
Consistent with this overall direction of travel and increasingly constrained public funding, we have now decided to introduce more paid for services in areas where we believe the market can best bear these costs. In doing this, we are increasing the focus of our resource into high value carbon reduction areas where private sector funding is not available or where we can achieve significant leverage of our public funding.
We believe that larger organisations are generally most able to pay for carbon reduction advice services. Smaller organisations will therefore continue, subject to demand and available budget, to receive a range of free advice services including carbon surveys, while the advice line and the website are free and open to all.
Other parts of our service offering, such as early-stage low carbon innovation, will continue to receive free services for example our Entrepreneurs Fast Track service.
The detailed changes are summarised below.
1. In England, the threshold for paying for Carbon Trust carbon reduction advice services will move from £3M to £500k annual group energy spend, and all new advice projects for organisations above this threshold (i.e. work hitherto co-funded by Carbon Trust at 30%) will be undertaken on a paid-for basis (i.e. without any direct Carbon Trust subsidy to the customer).
2. The provision of energy use data (1 year’s bills or half-hourly meter information) will become a pre-requisite for all carbon surveys for organisations across the UK with an annual group energy spend of under £500k. This will improve the quality, impact and value for money of surveys by arming the consultant with the maximum information prior to carrying out the survey.
- For annual group energy spend of £500k and under, carbon surveys will continue to be provided and 100% funded by Carbon Trust, across the UK.
- In the Devolved Administrations, there will be no change to co-funding levels (i.e. 30% Carbon Trust funding above £3m annual group energy spend and 100% Carbon Trust funding below that).
- In the public sector, there is no change to this year’s Public Sector Carbon Management schemes (Local Authorities, Higher Education, NHS and Central Government Estate), which will continue to be delivered free of charge to end users. Support to public sector organisations in England outside these schemes, such as bespoke Carbon Management projects, will however be subject to the same new conditions as the private sector, detailed above.
This move has been supported by business groups including the British Chambers of Commerce.
“In these times of austerity it is right that the Carbon Trust focuses its resources on those businesses most need of its services and support. Small companies, which may not have the financial muscle or know-how that is available to larger firms, require assistance and advice in order to maximise their energy efficiency and reduce costs.
Adam Marshall, Director of Policy and External Affairs, British Chambers of Commerce.