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Hello everyone and welcome to today's webinar which is on circle, ESOS and energy monitoring.
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What food and drink manufacturers need to know in 2025, hosted by our professional affiliate members Trinity.
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There will be a Q &A at the end so please put in any questions you have in the question box and we'll do our best to go through as many as we can at the end of the webinar.
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Following the webinar we'll be sending you an aftercare email in the next couple of days and this will contain a recording of the webinar, copy of the slides and contact details of today's presenters.
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So without further ado, I hand over to today's presenters, Russell and Alex.
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Okay, thanks, Deegan.
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Good morning, everyone.
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My name is Russell Dean from SRD Technical.
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I'm one of the directors in there.
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And we work specifically in the area of ESOS and SECRA regulatory monitoring.
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And I'm working today, partnering today with Alex from Triatility.
1:04
and when I'm completed Alex will talk about energy monitoring and what you need to know on that.
1:11
So the title is what food and drink manufacturers need to know in 2025 when it comes to a secret ESOS and monitoring.
1:21
So Alex if I could ask you to put up the the UK chart that will help me just explain the background to what's going on. Thank you.
1:30
So I should say that sitting behind everything that we're going to talk about today in terms of a context is really around the climate emergency and I can't believe anybody hasn't heard about that to date.
1:49
And the UK has put shoulder to the wheel and pledged as a country that by 2050 it will be at net zero emissions, carbon emissions within the UK and more importantly and closer to home by 2030 will be at something like 70% net zero carbon emissions.
2:12
So the 2030 is easy to focus in on and quite a challenging target for the UK.
2:17
Now, in order for the UK to do that, it's driving changes within the business community with two regulatory reporting systems.
2:28
One is called the ESOS, that's the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme, and that's managed by the Environment Agency, and I'll come back to that in a minute or two.
2:38
And then the other regulatory report is the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting Regulation.
2:44
That's run by HMRC, the government, and that report has to be produced annually by organisations when they're putting together their annual accounts that they submit in.
2:58
So again, it's a public report that goes with the business every year.
3:02
Now, both of those, although they're run by different governmental departments, both of reports work on the same base data and the companies that are on the radar for both ESOS and SECRA are companies circa 40 million sales revenue or turnover or employee numbers of 250 or above.
3:26
So if you're sitting there and you're wondering whether you qualify for either ESOS or SECRA those are the numbers and worth just checking out.
3:37
So dealing with dealing with the two reports if I can ask Alex just to move on to the the next slide.
3:50
Basically what the slide is showing here is three scopes and that's what the government the UK government is looking to drive.
3:59
The scopes are basically the carbon emissions for businesses.
4:03
So if you look at scope one there, which is the middle pillar, that's really all the gas, hydrocarbon gas that you use in the business.
4:11
That's the power, the operations, your premises, your heating, your hot water and the like.
4:18
But it's also the gas as in your company vehicles and that can be from your fleet of vehicles that you may use or it can be right through to the HGV vehicles that you may use to distribute some of your products.
4:31
So that's scope one, carbon emissions, and the government wants you to get on top of those and start reducing the emissions on scope one.
4:40
Scope two then is a simpler one, that's basically the electric that you use employing your business to run your business operationally.
4:49
So obvious things would be things like lights, or there'd be heating, or anything, any of your assets, your big assets that you might use in manufacturing that draw down on electricity.
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Now, the government's only asking you to report in those two reports I've described there, ESOS and CECRA, on scope one and your scope two.
5:08
So basically, your gas and electric and your transport.
5:11
Now, there's a big bucket which is called scope three, which I've also put in there and will be sending the slides on.
5:18
And scope three is basically anything that comes into your business through your suppliers.
5:27
And then that's called the Upstream Activities.
5:30
And then anything that comes out of your businesses, that's your Downstream Activities, typically your products, but it can be some of the other things like Waste and that.
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And those are called Scope 3.
5:43
Now, in order for you to put a net zero, effective net zero plan in place, you really need to be considering your Scope 1, your Scope 2, and your Scope 3 emissions as a business.
5:56
However, for the purposes of reporting, which is the ESOS and the SACRA, for the purposes of reporting, at the minute you only need to report on Scope 1 and on Scope 2.
6:10
So that's where we are at the minute.
6:14
SACRA is simple in the sense that that has to be produced annually and that has to go in with your published accounts when you do that and that can sit there as a public document for your business.
6:27
Now ESOS is a weightier reporting system and that's managed every four years and they call those phases.
6:36
Right now we've completed phase three and we're about to commence on ESOS phase four.
6:46
Now what ESOS is asking you to do as a business is look to work with an agency.
6:54
Typically, it would be someone like us, SRD technical, and we would come in and we would look at your business in terms of a representative sample of the facilities that you'd have, the premises that you would have, and we would do inspections of the site there.
7:08
And the idea is to break down where your scope one and your scope two emissions or where your energy is being used on those premises.
7:16
And The other big part of that as well is to look at your company vehicles then.
7:22
So as I say, that can be your fleet on the sales side or it can be company cars that employees are using right through to some of the logistics, some of the transport that you might be using as well.
7:34
That information then is then collated and then a report is processed.
7:42
So we finished phase three on ESOS, that was back in March of this year and phase four now needs to include December of next year which will be 26 because it's an annual report that's produced and that will commence next year.
8:02
So we're basically we're tiptoeing into phase four now which is what we're talking about so I'll come back to that.
8:09
Now there have been some additions by the Environment Agency it seems like each time come out with an announcement, they're looking for slightly and tougher and tougher regulation.
8:20
So I think in the early days of phase one and phase two, there was an acceptance that an ESOS report was a piece of compliance work and when it was completed, you could tick the box on compliance and you could put it in the filing cabinet.
8:35
Things have now changed and it isn't about to go away.
8:38
So on ESOS phase three now, the environment agency have brought out what they call an action plan.
8:46
So as well as putting in the recommendations in your resource report about how you're going to save energy and reduce your carbon, you're now being asked to put an action plan together and that has to be completed every year and it has to be done by December the 5th this year 2025 and what and what you're saying in your action plan is what are the things you're going to be doing to reduce your energy.
9:09
You'll use your energy more efficiently because you still might be growing as a company but how are you going to use energy more efficiently and how you're going to bring your carbon emissions down.
9:19
And that information is now published by the Environment Agency and they'll publish the action plans when they come out in December as well. So they are now in the public domain.
9:31
So that's where we're up to at the minute.
9:33
We are finished phase three in ESOS with an action plan audit to complete in of this year and the next year will begin ESOS phase four and the process starts all over again.
9:49
Now if anybody's left in any doubt in terms of how regulatory the Environment Agency are making this, they are able to hand out and have handed out severe penalties for non-compliance on the So, if you qualify for ESOS or SECRA and you choose not to complete them, the fines can be up to £50 ,000 depending on the size of the company.
10:14
Some of the fines are much larger than that.
10:17
And for all of the time that you're out of qualification or out of submittal qualification, it's £500 a day.
10:23
So, they do have a big stick to wield to make sure these things are happening.
10:27
And to put it in context, as I said, the regulator reporting there is to get businesses on site.
10:35
so that they can start managing their carbon emissions and using their energy more efficiently in the UK so that the UK government can start to hit its targets.
10:47
So one last area before I hand over to Alex on the energy monitoring, a critical part of what goes on in the business, I think I'd just say something about learning because we've completed now as a company with lots of our phase two, phase three, and now we're engaging with our customers on phase four, which begins next year starting the planning process. So just a few things in terms of learning that we found.
11:18
I think first off the bat is that one of the easiest things we found to work with our customers is to try and put what is quite a confusing landscape here into an energy policy as soon as is possible as one of the early recommendations.
11:40
So try and state as quickly as you can what you are intending to do with your ESOS reporting, what it means for your organisation, what it means for the divisions, the departments within your organisation and what some of your goals are to be importantly for net zero.
11:59
So we found that a critical first step and learning for most organizations.
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The second learning for us has been that you won't do this without aligning your people in the business behind these goals on the energy policy. Without the people, things won't change.
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So the second really important learning for us is spending time training, developing the people within the organisation so they get with the plot.
12:26
They understand what you're trying to do with an organisation and they can get behind it in that way.
12:32
And then the third one, the third learning for us, and Alex is going to talk about that on the monitoring, is that sure, you procure your energy through companies like Tritility and you procure it as competitively and as green as you possibly can.
12:48
But once it reaches your metre, it's up to you then to have the responsibility to know where you're using it within your business.
12:56
And so often we find that companies don't know where they're using their energy, they don't know what it's costing them.
13:01
So the monitoring part is the third part of the pillar for us that's vitally important that you get on and you start to understand that.
13:09
And I'll allow Alex to say a bit more about that when he comes through.
13:14
I think other learnings are data.
13:18
This is new information for most organizations.
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they've not been gathering this type of information for about their transport and about their energy and the report is asking them to be quite forensic about it and in particular be really accurate about it because the more accuracy you can have at the start, the more change and improvement you can start to see.
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So data gathering is really important to us and we really won't take a step forward with an organisation until we're really clear we've got the right data from the outset.
13:47
So you can never start early enough with ESOS and SECRA. Give yourself time if you're doing it for the first time.
13:54
Give yourself time to get underway on it.
14:00
I think probably the last thing I would say on the learning is that under the ESOS they have trained a number of professionals to be lead assessors.
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We have our own lead assessors that we work with triatility on.
14:13
They're ESOS lead assessors trained up specifically and I think It's important to make sure that you go out and you fit yourself with the right lead assessor.
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Someone that's gonna know something about your business or has worked with competitors of yours or sister businesses of yours so they understand your business in the first place.
14:33
Choosing the right lead assessor, I think is very important.
14:37
So some learning there in terms of what we picked up and I'll pick up on any questions you might have as well because I'm sure there's lots of things in there.
14:46
but effectively that's where we are at the minute.
14:49
The climate emergency is being backed by the UK government.
14:53
The UK government is then rolling out regulatory reporting in the business sector through ESOS and SECRA that we are now on phase four, about to begin phase four in ESOS.
15:03
SECRA continues every year and the government is really looking to get businesses on board so that they can start to get their net zero emissions down by 60% by 2030.
15:16
So I'll halt for there and hand over to Alex, if I may.
15:21
Yeah, thanks very much for that, Russell.
15:24
Yes, good morning, everybody.
15:25
As you well know by now, my name's Alex.
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I head up our energy services department here at Tri-Tility and have done so for the last five years.
15:34
Purpose of me joining the webinar today, as Russell's alluded to already, is to just build on and develop that conversation around monitoring and where that supports in various different regulatory reporting, ESOS and SEC are directly in the scope today.
15:51
What I want to do today is just to build on that a little bit, obviously seeing where the landscape has changed over the last five years and equally where it's going.
16:01
I appreciate that some of our attendees are joining us today this morning in the Federation in that everybody is at different stages with this stuff.
16:11
Some are just starting out, some are well into it, and some are really, really well down the line with it and very progressively thinking and I just want to kind of hopefully touch on areas that most people who have joined us today can kind of relate with on it.
16:25
I think Russell's covered some really good points there and I think the learnings at the end of it have been really good because I think From my perspective, what we've seen firsthand is that this and even the slide that we've currently got loaded up, it can seem like a lot and it can kind of almost seem a bit overbearing and overwhelming and throw into the mix that this is the wonderful energy industry of the UK, which likes to sort of overly convolute itself and almost frustrate people to the nth degree.
16:55
What we try to do here at Tritility and obviously working alongside the guys at SRD is just of take things step by step and basically make it more breathable that you guys can kind of understand it and just get on with it a little bit and see that progress and relay that progress to your peers and your colleagues within the business that you're operating in.
17:18
So with that being said I just kind of want to touch on a few different various areas here.
17:26
I appreciate Obviously, we are talking about ESOS.
17:29
Those action plans are absolutely critical and a very interesting point from us in terms of kind of being able to help and support our clients of, okay, that's your action plan.
17:38
How are you actually going to deploy that within the business?
17:42
With regards to energy monitoring on this side of things, there is so much out there in terms of tools available to you.
17:50
And what I'm very keen to sort of emphasize from our perspective is that we really, really want to make this stuff as user-friendly and as engaging as possible, because as I've already said, this stuff can really overcomplicate itself at times.
18:02
And it doesn't need to be.
18:03
Let's just take it one step at a time.
18:05
So from our perspective, it's about getting the data to you guys, as I say, in a user-friendly way.
18:14
And yeah, that's going to feed in heavily to the baseline of certainly Secca.
18:18
And a big part of that is ESOS, as we've just seen on the previous slide.
18:22
But as well as that is kind of what else can data do for your business?
18:27
I'd be interested when we get the opportunity for some questions after this sort of section as to if anybody is in this process and kind of what have they done or what are they looking to do or how do they kind of collate that data.
18:40
So we can do different things, we can obviously benchmark your business, obviously multi-site operations that's really interesting for and not just benchmark it in terms of kind of okay I'm using this one site and this is the other, we understand and appreciate that all different sites are different sizes, different ages, more efficient than others.
18:57
So we can do that in various different metrics in terms of head counts or meters squared.
19:02
How is your site performing against each other and how can we utilize those benchmarks to your benefit?
19:10
Equally in terms of where data has been historically approached, has been kind of, I mean, when I first started in the energy services side of things of this industry is that it was always historically approached from a perspective of, okay, let's try and use that data to reduce our consumption.
19:27
But we're seeing a change in attitudes these days from various different approaches, one of them being a budgeting perspective, how can we more accurately analyze our data?
19:37
Yes, of course, low hanging fruit, quick wins when it comes to data monitoring, as well as obviously as Russell's alluded to there in terms of utilizing that data to meet regulatory requirements such as ESOS and the SECA reporting.
19:51
And further, what we've seen since then as well is, obviously, since the energy crisis that we've had not too long ago, albeit pricing does seem to be coming to a more level-headed new normal, if we like, is that how can we utilize that pricing to actually budget that within the end delivered product and passing those costs on, as energy was previously dealt with as a bit of a standard commodity that was built in at a usual rate.
20:18
Obviously, those rates exploding and depending on what point you've procured your contracts, you can be the one left holding the bag on those prices as well.
20:26
So we want to make sure that all of this data is being used as effectively as we possibly can.
20:33
It links in with, as we've alluded to on the slides there, energy intensive industries, being able to prove how much is going into the production of said process and your percentages that can do that, that facility of us having the ability to circuit level monitor as well, not just at a meter level, which is very useful for the scope on emissions for our reporting, but equally being able to drill down and sometimes find that needle in a haystack, whether or not that's reporting or utilizing data, or alternatively with a view to reducing your consumption on areas that you may think, do you know what?
21:09
I believe that we can improve our efficiencies from that perspective and you need the evidence support to back that up within your organisation.
21:18
It's a case of that's the attitudes that we've seen shift in a monitoring perspective and how we're seeing that develop over the coming years and the attitudes towards it and realising that, yes, procuring the best contract, as hard as that may be, is a big part of it, but equally, what more can we be doing?
21:36
And I think the way the country is changing and shifting has supported that attitude for our organisations businesses to go, let's have a look at where we can improve ourselves internally.
21:50
Again, interested in some of the facilities that are out there for people these days.
21:56
From a monitoring perspective, we're not naive to think we're the only people in the industry that do that. There's a host of tools out there available to our clients, available to the FDF.
22:06
But it's about finding, again, similar to what Russell said around the lead assessor, about finding the one that's right for you.
22:13
And one of the big focuses for us, as I've already mentioned is, okay, how can we make that user-friendly?
22:18
How can we make that engaging?
22:19
And not just for the person who's been appointed within the business to tackle this subject matter, but equally people of all different levels within the organization to create a culture around it and a greater buy-in of being able to look at something that isn't just, what the heck does that mean?
22:35
But more so, yeah, I can take Bytize information away from that and how we can look at it and deploy that within the organization to make that relatable to the stakeholders within the business of all different levels.
22:49
A lot of our clients that we find from equally the FDF as well as obviously our client base as a business is that a lot of people are still relying on bills, manual meter readings and so on and so forth. And that doesn't need to be the case anymore.
23:05
It's about making life as easy as possible for our clients.
23:09
And how we do that is various different ways can approach this through speaking to your suppliers, tapping into their data feeds, deploying equipment on your site.
23:19
There's so many different approaches that we can take on these sorts of things that can save valuable man hours, time, and equally frustration, let's be really honest.
23:30
It's not great sitting behind one of a million spreadsheets that can overload the process and equally add to the unnecessary stress around that monitoring side things and trying to collate all this data together.
23:44
When it comes to the reporting of ESOS and SECA, obviously, the hardest part of that is starting.
23:49
I'm sure you'd agree, Russell, when it comes to SECA and ESOS is putting those reports together.
23:57
So having somebody that I can do that and help you with that is crucial from our experience.
24:05
Absolutely, Alex. That is critical.
24:09
One of the learnings we have found is that when you when the company takes ownership of it and makes someone responsible, we speed along and get things done where it spreads across a number of different departments or people.
24:20
Often it makes it more difficult to get things done.
24:22
And I think the other thing about the monitoring as well is that, you know, we're a big believer in engaging the people of the organization behind it.
24:29
You know, a simple example is at home, isn't it?
24:32
If you've got the kids at home, you know, and you've got the heat blaring away in the winter and they're leaving the windows open in the bedrooms, You're not going to get through to them unless you explain it in some way, and it's a bit like the workplace in the same way.
24:48
Explanation is the way to go with the people if you're going to get them to a line behind it.
24:52
They take action.
24:53
They don't need someone else to tell them.
24:54
They'll take their own action.
24:56
But one of the key measures we've found for that is the monitoring.
24:59
If you're going to give people a chance and they're going to put effort into it, you've got to give them some feedback, a bit like the speedo in your car.
25:06
Feedback's the thing that's important, and that's where the monitoring works so successfully.
25:09
they can start to see then that their efforts are making sense because they can see the monitoring on the screen.
25:17
Exactly right and I think one of the big things that one of our big learns as an organization when it's come to the monitoring and engaging our client base and helping our clients engage their stakeholders as I've alluded to is translating this stuff into a common language which we've moved away from yes of course we and monitoring kilowatts because that is the baseline foundation of what we're monitoring.
25:41
But we will absolutely translate that into a pounds and pence metric because telling somebody that they've wasted 200 kilowatts over the course of an evening when nobody's been on site in comparison saying every evening we're wasting 30 quid, multiply that over 365 days of the year, I'm sure that most of our attendees today have got people coming to them asking for more resource, more staff members, more things that will help them do their job.
26:08
If you can turn around and go, well, actually, if we can nullify 10 grand's worth of energy savings, that's gonna help me go back to the board or the powers that be and ask for those kind of improvements that will only benefit them.
26:19
That is the way that we find people engaging.
26:22
One of our common starting points that we'll do just from a low hanging through perspective is carry that out of hours analysis.
26:28
And as a general broad question is asking people, do you know how much you spend when you're not there?
26:33
The vast majority of clients that I've spoke to in the past don't know the answer to that.
26:37
And when we can actually tell them, actually, it was X amount of pounds of pence, all of a sudden people sit back and go, hang on a minute, I didn't realize that's what was happening.
26:47
And when you give them that information, and not only give them that information, but give them in a format and something that they can engage with and equally take to their peers and their senior stakeholders, that's also a tool of way of getting people on board.
27:02
And I think the other thing, Alex, as well, when we were dealing in the early days with some of the early regulator reporting phase two, in particular with ESOS nearly eight years ago now, energy costs were, you know, they were a bit of a given in businesses, a bit like they were at home at one stage, you know, we just flicked the switch and we didn't worry too much about the cost of it, that was the truth of it.
27:29
But we know now that energy costs in business can make up something like 15% of their overhead costs.
27:37
It's a significant figure now.
27:41
It's a big number.
27:43
So, you know, businesses are having to pay attention to it.
27:47
And of course, the more you can be using your energy efficiently, the more you're gonna be reducing your carbon in the business.
27:55
And we've found with the businesses that really engage and embrace the ESOS and the SECRA, if they really take it on board and get beyond ticking the compliance box and use it to drive change in the business, we reckon that on an annual basis, they could be saving between 10 and 15% on their energy bills, which is worth having.
28:17
Yeah, absolutely. Exactly right.
28:19
And I think one key point from my perspective and one of the learns as well in terms of that energy monitoring side of things is the historic attitude is this has been reserved for the INC sort of corporate large end users.
28:32
To put perspective on this as to where we're at, we have a range of clients that are looking at their monitoring and that can be anything from, I appreciate taking away slightly from our attendees that we've got today, but I've got pubs and churches that are monitoring their usage at the moment.
28:46
So it's, and it ranges all the way across the sort of micro business up into SME and up into sort of large INC clients.
28:54
So it all depends on that sort of attitude and I think the explosion in pricing that we've seen over the last few years has drove more and more sort of client types to actually go, hang on, let's have a look at this.
29:05
I think there's an interesting point as well that we've got coming on the horizon that some of our attendees may or may not be aware of is this, the new legislation market-wide half-hourly settlement that's coming into play, which is going to require all electricity meters, domestic and non-domestic, commercial, moving to a half-hourly data reporting meter type.
29:27
That is our understanding, speaking with our partners across the industry, is that there is going to be legislation with more teeth, shall we say, coming into suppliers that are going to really push suppliers into that.
29:43
The reason I'm mentioning this is we are going to see in the coming two years is the time scale, an explosion of data throughout the industry and that data is crucial to, I mean bigger picture is obviously of course the reason they want it is so that the country knows how much power that they need to be generating in purchasing.
30:03
But from a client user end side of things is you're going to have greater visibility and greater control of that data and equally therefore more control over your energy usage, which is gonna be really, really useful.
30:21
So again, I've probably, forgive me guys, I'm terrible with slides.
30:24
I like to go off on a tangent as some people have probably already figured.
30:28
But yeah, I mean, in terms of some of this stuff that we can do and look to support with our clients is that we've got that kind of, we can bring that data from existing meters or invoices of BMS.
30:41
We can keep that data as sort of a day plus one time scale.
30:44
so you can kind of really come in and deep dive into what's going on on the site.
30:48
Again, alluding to what Russell's been mentioning earlier in the webinar, is that the biggest takeoff we see on this is if there is an owner, a leader within the organization that is tasked with doing this.
31:02
And the vast majority of times we see that deployed, the amount of wins that we see within that business around this subject matter just goes to the roof, as opposed to someone who kind of just picks this up their own accord or it kind of gets added to their workload.
31:18
So we can, as I said, I think I've touched on some most of this stuff now, so I won't cover it.
31:21
Guys can see that on the screen there.
31:23
But yeah, from a monitoring perspective, this is something that we will look to work hand in hand with, with like SRD and Russell and his team, but equally from a perspective of getting our heads around it, moving away from those traditional ways of monitoring, of taking the meter readings, looking at spreadsheet, looking at the invoices, because it can be like finding a needle in a haystack when it comes to, well, why have we used so much energy this month?
31:52
I'm not really sure.
31:53
You're looking at a bill, which the only purpose of that bill is to tell you how much money you owe the supplier, whereas we can engage that from a half-hourly data frequency for all types of meters, electricity, half-hourly, non-half-hourly, gas meters, can even do water, which I encourage you there's a hefty water usage there and translating that data into not only kilowatt hours but cost carbon and then that feeds very nicely into as as Russell's already alluded to into the work that that they do and helps on that front.
32:25
So yeah I mean that is the, I'll put that back on just for the purpose, most of my side of things from a monitoring perspective.
32:34
Russell I'm not sure if there's anything you sort of felt needed adding?
32:38
No, that's fine, Alex.
32:40
So I think that's probably all the messaging and communication I intended to get across today.
32:48
Thank you.
32:49
No, great stuff.
32:51
I think if anyone's got any questions on that, please add them in, comment later.
32:57
Oh, excuse me, can't get my words out.
32:59
Add them into the webinar and obviously me, myself, and Russell will be more than happy to pick them up with you guys.
33:04
and go from there.
33:06
I think if anyone's going to ask a question or while they're doing that, Russell, from my perspective, what I'm interested in is the action plan side of things.
33:14
Obviously, it's been the change from the recent change to the last phase of ESOS.
33:18
How are you seeing those action plans develop?
33:22
Are you seeing any trends in those action plans that are sort of common across different business types or all apps very, very bespoke?
33:29
Is there any common themes to them?
33:31
how are you seeing them tread from your experience, from the experience you've had with them so far?
33:38
Yeah, that's a good question, Alex.
33:39
I mean, I think the introduction of the action plans has been quite significant in the marketplace because it's taken ESOS from being a compliance regulator report, as I said earlier, a tick box, if you wanted to, where organisations could then say, well, we've completed the completed ESOS phase three, we can put that in the filing cabinet.
34:08
It's done, we can wait another four years before we begin again.
34:11
I think with the environment agency coming out with these action plans, they've actually nudged organisations to think, actually, this isn't going away.
34:19
And we're going to need to get on board now.
34:22
And in the same way with a bit of carrot and a bit of a stick thing to continue to find and enforce organizations if they don't complete their hourglass.
34:33
And the carrot being really that organizations put sections down.
34:39
Where are you going to be using your energy more efficiently?
34:43
Seek help on that.
34:44
Find ways that you can do it and get on with it.
34:47
And what we'd like to know is in December how – so the environment agency are building up massive amounts of data at the moment collecting this information.
34:57
They are also going to be putting it into the public domain and it's there for organisations to use it.
35:04
As I say, you know, they're moving, they're definitely moving from the compliance box into the action orientated box where they're using their energy more efficiently and they're reducing their carbon. So we've seen a big shift in that sense.
35:20
Also, I think the other thing that brought in is that whereas the ESOS would sit in the regulatory box within the organisation, probably within one department, what it's forced organisations to do is to break out from that now. So most departments, divisions have to be involved now in the action plans.
35:40
It can't be an individual pursuit. So it means bringing people in.
35:45
And as I said, the three areas in phase three, that's bringing together the company to form an energy policy where they allow their goals, aligning their people and staff behind those things, and then using the energy monitoring that you talk through.
36:02
Those are the three pillars that are really starting to produce the results in organisations.
36:08
So from our perspective, albeit it seems like it's more compliance for organisations, we're really seeing the ESOS action plans working now to get organisations across the line and start to say this isn't going the way, we need to get on board with it and let's start making some changes and making some savings.
36:25
And as I say, some of the savings we've seen are between 10 and 15 per cent per annum on their energy costs, which is significant now given the price of electricity and gas out there.
36:36
Yeah, great. Well, thank you for that. I'm just really curious on those side of things.
36:41
I've I've seen some of the ESOS reports, I've seen some of them initial sort of submissions, and I've seen the action plans being drafted with some of our clients.
36:49
It's how they're kind of being met was really sort of something that I've been intrigued by, because we don't see a lot of the follow through, obviously, when we work with you guys.
37:00
I mean, one of the questions that we've had there in terms of, I'm just really trying to read that there.
37:07
Sorry, I'm terrible with this technology.
37:09
Is there anything else going down the tracks terms of regulatory reporting that we should be aware of, potentially scaling down to different business types? I'm not sure. Yes, there are. There is more regulation coming down the track.
37:31
Probably the one that most organisations might be aware of, but perhaps don't understand where it and it's not strictly regulation, but any organizations, particularly in food and food manufacture, any of those businesses that are working with government bodies, or government bodies might include things like local government, or it might include councils, public sector, but anybody that's working with those organizations and has them as clients, there's a demand now to report on a carbon reporting plan, and that plan has to go along with any bid or any proposal that that organisation puts in, and it can make up to 10% of the proposal now, so it's a significant amount.
38:23
So not strictly regulatory, but for any of your federation members here that are working with local councils, local governments or governments, that's a report that's becoming increasingly important and we get asked to complete for organisations and it's a sort of a hybrid between the SECRA and the ESOS and where it links in again is that organisations don't sit in isolation as I showed in the diagram, we're showing Scope 1, 2 and in particular Scope 3, you know, typically organizations sit within a supply chain.
39:01
So they're working with suppliers to provide goods for them.
39:04
They're manufacturing those goods, they turn them into products, and then they're using logistics firms or distribution firms to distribute their products out to their customers.
39:13
And that supply chain, each of those organizations is under the same pressure to use their energy more efficiently and reduce their carbon.
39:22
So a number of the companies that are listening in today They will probably feel pressures from their customers to know what their carbon footprint is.
39:33
They'll be feeling pressures from their suppliers wanting to know what their carbon footprint was and also their stakeholders, their investors, their customers, their employees, stakeholders from all over really.
39:45
So there's pressure all around for organizations to get on top of their energy and their carbon numbers and understand them.
39:52
And those that do and use it, they can use it then to their own competitive advantage in some way as well.
40:01
All right. Okay. Thank you.
40:02
I think from my perspective on your side of things, Russell, I mean, just out of curiosity for any of the attendees this morning, if anyone's, what's the best way to look at it or speak with you guys about it?
40:16
But if someone's halfway through looking at the resource, the second report and they haven't started yet, they're not sure what's the best way for them to give you guys a shout and what information would they need, should we say, to kind of come to you and have a conversation and go look?
40:32
Yeah, we're completely open-minded on it, Alex.
40:36
Come through the federation, come through yourself at Tritility because you're the company that we partner with.
40:44
So come through those routes and we're completely open-minded.
40:47
I mean, where they might want to talk to us about their phase three and how it went or the pros and cons of it, happy enough to do that.
40:55
Perhaps some things they got stuck on in phase three or they're unsure about their action plan.
40:59
They haven't managed to get out of the starting blocks on that yet, or simply allow us to review some of the things that they've done.
41:06
Maybe their SACRA or their ESOS report or their carbon reporting plan, more than happy to look those things over.
41:12
I mean, as I say, really open-minded, here to listen, and if we can support organisations making that next step forward on what can be quite a confusing landscape, then we'll do that.
41:24
Yeah.
41:25
Yeah.
41:25
I think it's very similar from our perspective, to be fair, is sort of, for any of our attendees today, please reach out and, as I've alluded to a couple of times, the point that I raised is that this industry, there is not a one-size-fits-all process.
41:39
I think, yes, of course, we've got the reporting, the regularity, and what you've got to do.
41:43
But in terms of where businesses are at when it comes to sector resource, just monitoring and from a case of, I want to look at this, I want to be a bit more sort of on the ball with it.
41:53
How do I do that?
41:55
Is the most successful projects that I work and embark on with our clients is the ones where they will just pick up the phone.
42:02
We don't stand on ceremony, have those regular interactions and go, we're thinking of doing this.
42:07
about this? What about the other?
42:09
Bouncing ideas around in terms of how we can improve efficiencies or how we can maybe monitor certain areas of frustration.
42:15
So I would just encourage any of our members to kind of come back, reach out to us and basically say, look, this is where we're at.
42:23
This is what we're hoping to do. Can you guys support us in doing that?
42:27
And the answer is always yes, of course. The best route is obviously what we will be tasked with doing.
42:34
The landscape of industry and the energy industry and the reporting that comes with it. It can be very frustrating.
42:40
We know that.
42:42
So I just encourage anybody to kind of reach out, give us a shout, and we can sort of pick these conversations up and go from there.
42:49
And we would look to, I don't know, monitoring from my perspective, the final note is merely the start point.
42:57
A lot of our attendees today might think the energy contracts and the procurement is the bit if anything that's quite frustrating in my experience I've seen but that's the easy bit because once they're done they're done for one two three four five years and after that it's right okay how are we going to spend our time targeting on reporting reducing being more cost effective how are we going to do that so please please reach out and I think that'll probably be a good place to to finish up on Russell if there's anything else for you to add no nothing more for me Alex just thank everybody for listening in.
43:35
Thank you so much. OK.