Business leaders have called for the government’s troubled energy efficiency obligation on industry, the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), to be axed. They slammed the scheme as achieving the opposite of its environmental aims and being “purely a revenue-raising instrument” for government.
Industry management body the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said: “Scrapping the CRC would remove an ineffective policy instrument that is presenting a barrier to business energy efficiency.”
The CRC was introduced by the previous Labour administration to cut emissions in large public and private sector organisations. Incentives are meant to come from reputational, behavioural and financial drivers. The CBI said it was failing on all counts and called for mandatory carbon reporting to replace it.
The CBI said it accepted government claims that CRC revenue was needed to repair public finances, but it wanted a tax on CRC-eligible firms instead, which could be withdrawn when finances were fixed.
This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 22 June 2012.
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