Legislative Compliance
Expert support across a variety of UK and EU based legislation and directives, designed to ensure you remain compliant with your ESG obligations.
Our Legislative Compliance Services
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Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme (ESOS)
Support to prepare your ESOS Action Plan, Annual Reports, energy auditing across your sites and helping you get compliant with the upcoming Phase 4 requirements.
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Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting (SECR)
Expert advice on measuring your Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions, calculating suitable Intensity Metrics and driving year-on-year improvement in your carbon impact.
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Carbonbaseline Reporting
Carbonbaseline is similar to SECR, but has been designed specifically for those clients who fall under the compliant threshold but want to quantify and improve their impact on the environment.
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CSRD
Boxfish have developed our in-house capability to support our clients meet the requirements and deliver compliance against the various aspects contained in the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme (ESOS)
The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) is a mandatory energy assessment scheme for organisations in the U.K. that are classified as a “large undertaking”.
This is defined as companies or organisations that:
- Employ 250 or more people and/or
- Have an annual turnover in excess of £44 million and an annual balance sheet total in excess of £38 million
Under ESOS, large undertakings in the UK are required to undertake a focused energy assessments of their buildings, industrial processes, and transport activities to identify cost-effective energy saving measures. The energy assessments must cover at least 95% of the organization’s total energy consumption, consider all significant energy use within the organization, including electricity, gas, oil, and other fuels and be reviewed by a qualified lead assessor before final submission to the regulator.
In addition, recent changes to the legislation in advance of Phase 4, now mean that large undertakings must also prepare and submit an ESOS Action Plan by December 2024 that details the actions they intend to take and the anticipated energy, carbon and financial savings these will unlock. From there, the changes also require that an annual ESOS Progress Report is prepared by December 2025 and 2026 which details the actions that have been implemented and quantifies the realised savings.
For Boxfish, ESOS is more than just compliance – it’s a strategic opportunity to better understand and reduce your energy consumption, utility costs, and carbon emissions as well as driving sustainable growth for your organisation.
Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting (SECR)
Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) was implemented to improve both the visibility of carbon reporting across the UK and encourage implementation of energy efficiency measures to help companies reduce their costs and environmental impact.
It applies to quoted companies, large limited liability partnerships and large UK incorporated but unquoted companies if they meet two or more of the qualification criteria below:
- 250 or more employees
- Turnover in excess of £36 million
- Balance sheet in excess of £18 million
SECR requires companies to measure, analyse and report their energy consumption and associated Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions on an annual basis and compare this against data from their baseline year through the use of one or more ‘intensity metrics’ that are relevant to the industrial sector in which they operate, e.g. tCO2e/£m sales revenue or tCO2e/FTE. The final report must then be submitted through your annual accounts submission to company’s house.
Our tailored SECR solutions are designed to deliver compliance against the regulatory framework and assist drive your business towards a greener, more sustainable future.
Carbonbaseline Reporting
Carbonbaseline by Boxfish is a unique, 7 step process which supports SMEs and mid-sized corporates to understand their emissions intensity and identify opportunities to make their operations greener.
By measuring and tracking the Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions associated with your operations, Carbonbaseline enables a better understanding of the business impact on the environment, sets improvement targets and identifies measures that can reduce carbon, energy consumption and utility spend.
Not only that, Carbonbaseline also allows you to easily benchmark and compare your organisation against your competitors, as well as against different industry sectors by developing your Carbon Intensity Metric. This metric can then be used to set reduction targets and aligns with your wider journey out to a net-zero carbon future.
CSRD
In January 2023, the European Union adopted the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which requires EU and non-EU companies with activities in the EU to file annual sustainability reports alongside their financial statements.
These reports must be prepared in accordance with European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). Companies will need to report in compliance with new ESRS as early as the 2024 reporting period. The standards are notable for their breadth and granularity, going well beyond the reporting requirements in other mandatory and voluntary ESG reporting frameworks.
Under the CSRD rules, reporting entities will be required to report qualitative and quantitative information related to areas including their sustainability policies, goals and performance, greenhouse gas emissions, anti-corruption and bribery, diversity of company boards, human rights issues and double materiality. While this will require additional time and resource, the benefits of complying with CSRD include:
- Cost Reduction: Integrating sustainability necessitates upfront investment but promises long-term savings by conserving natural resources, minimizing waste, and optimizing operational efficiency through process and logistics enhancements.
- Rick mitigation: Adhering to environmental regulations avoids penalties and reputational damage, while sustainable businesses mitigate energy risks, prevent climate change related disruptions, and provide transparent reporting to stakeholders.
- Innovation: Investing in sustainability serves both as a risk management tool and a catalyst for innovation, sparking new business opportunities through product redesign, new solutions, and partnerships.
- Reputational Enhancement: In today’s landscape, prioritising sustainability in business strategies not only cultivates loyalty among existing stakeholders but also effortlessly attracts new ones.
From January 2024, large public interest companies (e.g. those with over 500 employees) that are already subject to the Non-financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) must transition to CSRD, with first reports due in 2025. Large companies with more than 250 employees and/or more than €40 million in net turnover and/or more than €20 million in total assets must comply from January 2025 with report due in 2026. Listed SMEs will need to comply from 2026 with reports due in 2027 (although there is an option to opt-out until 2028 for certain industries. Finally, from 2028 onwards, all non-EU parent companies need to comply with the directive.
