The Companies (Directors’ Report) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Energy and Carbon Report) Regulations 2018

Overview

Businesses within scope must collect information relating to their energy use and associated carbon emissions, then submit this as part of their annual reporting to Companies House. These regulations came into force on 1st April 2019.

Measuring and reporting energy use and emissions can help drive improvements in energy efficiency and give carbon and financial savings for organisations. Energy efficiency is vital to business productivity, security of energy supplies, and supports the UK’s transition to a low-carbon economy.

These regulations introduced the new streamlined energy and carbon reporting (SECR) framework on 1st April 2019, following the closure of the CRC (carbon Reduction Commitment) Energy Efficiency Scheme at the end of March 2019. SECR builds on, but does not replace, existing requirements that companies may have, such as: 

• Mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting for quoted companies,
• the Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme (ESOS),
• Climate Change Agreements (CCA) Scheme, and
• the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

SECR applies to three different types of companies:

• Companies listed on a stock exchange 
• Companies that meet the 2006 Companies Act definition of “large” (even if they are not quoted on a stock exchange)
• Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) that meet the definition of “large”.

The Companies Act 2006 defines large companies as those that meet at least two of the three following criteria:

• Turnover of £36 million or more
• A balance sheet total of £18 million or more
• 250 employees or more