UK motor manufacturers call for reintroduction of CCA exemption rule

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) has called for the Climate Change Agreement (CCA) exemption rule to be re-introduced, as it claims the scrapping of the rule will cause administrative complexities for its members.


Disputing the “multitude of schemes” its members are required to report into, including the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC), CCA and EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS), SMMT said it would like to see the re-introduction of the CCA exemption rule to simplify monitoring and reporting and to “ensure the competitiveness of this growth sector”.

In 2012, DECC announced simplifications to the CRC, which included the removal of the CCA exemption rule from phase 2 of the CRC.

From April 1 2014 any on site emissions that are not captured by a CCA or EU ETS will fall into the CRC. According to the SMMT this is likely to create a “significant administrative burden” for those who come under the rule.

In a DECC organised webchat with Greg Barker, who answered questions on the CRC scheme, SMMT economics manager Matt Croucher said: “SMMT sites with EU ETS permits – are they to be fully exempt from the CRC? We await a definition of an EU ETS installation within the CRC, for which we are seeking to demonstrate that the whole EU ETS site should be excluded from the CRC, rather than just emissions associated with the specific sources of combustion”.

“EU ETS’s broad definition of combustion may now encompass dozens or even hundreds of individual combustion units, spread across the whole of a vehicle manufacturer’s site. A restrictive decision here would adversely impact the competitiveness of members’ UK-based operations,” he added.

“The vehicle manufacturers have EU ETS and CCAs on site, albeit in some cases not whole site coverage (mostly 60%+). CRC is therefore not required to encourage greater awareness of energy efficiency. We support the EEF’s call to remove all manufacturing sites from the CRC”.

Responding to Croucher’s comments DECC policy representative Paul McLaughlin, who stepped in for Barker, said: “It’s unfortunate that [the motor manufacturers and traders sector] has this view as 90% of consultation responses supported removal of the CCA exemption rule. On that basis, we have no plans to reintroduce it. To do so would go against the goal of simplification.

“On the EU ETS point, the CRC is designed to cover energy not covered by other schemes. We accept that operators will need to have an understanding of what is covered by EU ETS on their sites,” he added.

Leigh Stringer

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