The Environment Agency has published data on the firms that submitted energy audits ahead of the Energy Savings Obligation Scheme (Esos) deadline.
The list of 5939 outfits is published under the government’s open data initiative. While doubts remains over how many organisations actually qualify for the scheme (the EA sent out some 14,000 reminder letters last year), the Agency will not publish a list of those that may now face enforcement action.
The data suggests that as little as 13% of organisations (794 out of 5939) have a quantitative target to reduce energy use (see question 50: 13% said they had a quantitive energy reduction target and/or benchmarked; around 40% did not answer the question, the remainder said they had neither). Meanwhile, only around a quarter of respondents (1,400 organisations) said their board had discussed the results of the Esos assessment.
Those figures support findings by Energyst Media that energy efficiency remains too low on board priorities – and that Esos had made little impact on that front. However, our latest reader survey suggests energy is moving up the agenda.
The data also illustrates how the push for compliance made a sluggish start.
As of 26 May 2015, only 32 firms had notified the agency of compliance.
By 5 November, a month ahead of the original deadline, only 728 organisations had submitted their paperwork.
The agency then added six weeks’ grace for notification of compliance, but around a third of the total notifications submitted (1925) were filed between 1 December and 4 December. That makes 4 December ‘peak Esos’, with 13% of firms (or 778 of the total 5939) submitting paperwork that day. Only 14 firms filed on 5 December.
Organisations leaving their paperwork to the very last minute, on the revised date of 29 January, include football clubs Arsenal, Celtic and Leeds United.
Firms that struck early include data centre operator Equinix, hotel group Hilton, accountants PwC and luxury carmaker Bentley.
See the full Esos dataset here.
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