Companies Urged To Apply For Emissions Permits

The Environment Agency has today (Monday) confirmed the next steps for those businesses affected by the forthcoming emissions trading scheme, and urged operators that have not applied to urgently reco

The Environment Agency has confirmed the next steps for those businesses affected by the forthcoming emissions trading scheme, and urged companies operators that have not applied to urgently reconsider whether they are affected.

Approximately 800 businesses have applied and received permits to date, but this falls short of the originally anticipated number.

The Environment Agency is pressing companies to reconsider whether they need to apply for a permit, whilst stressing that applications for permits will still be accepted.

For the 800 installations which have already applied for and received their permit, they are now required, as a condition of their permit, to submit their monitoring and reporting plans.

There are various deadlines for plans' submissions.

For installations with annual emissions of carbon dioxide of over 500kt, plans must be received by 30 June 2004, whilst for installations with annual carbon dioxide emissions of less than 500kt, a 30 September 2004 deadline applies.

The agency said that a range of support tools and products, including an exemplar monitoring plan, will be available from its website from mid May.

To help businesses produce their monitoring plans the Agency, along with the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) and the Department of the Environment (Northern Ireland will be running a series of short workshops at the end of May.

The workshops will be used to launch the products and to explain to companies, step-by-step, what the regulators are expecting from them.

The Agency does not expect monitoring plans to be submitted until the products are available from the website for use.

Applicants are also encouraged to start budgeting for annual subsistence fees, which need to be levied to cover the Environment Agency's costs incurred in implementing and running the trading scheme.

The agency is working with Defra and other regulators to set a subsistence fee.

A charging scheme will be issued for consultation later this summer.

Anyone who has further questions about how the EU Emissions Trading Scheme may affect their business or organisation should contact the Environment Agency's helpdesk - contact details are provided here at Printingtalk.

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