NGER Reporting

Can you believe that we are already more than six months into the 2015-16 NGER reporting period? To help you prepare for reporting this year, Lisa Smith has prepared this update of recent developments in reporting requirements and some suggestions to make your NGERs reporting more valuable to your organisation.

Recent amendments

Prior to the due date for 2013-14 reporting period, a number of amendments were made to simplify NGER reporting requirements in an effort to reduce compliance costs for organisations. In many instances the changes would only apply to the extent of information required to be input into the online EERS (Emissions and Energy Reporting System) rather than the assessment of greenhouse emissions.

In basic terms the amendments covered:

• Relaxation of the requirements for the calculation of uncertainty:

• New reporting thresholds (see table) for fuel combustion and electricity usage allowing reduced reporting requirements relating to the use of relatively small quantities of solid, gaseous or liquid fuels and electricity.

• Expansion of facility level percentage reporting thresholds (see table) to encompass a greater number of facilities with proportionally small quantities of emissions and energy use.

Additional amendments relate to incidental reporting, the ability to use multiple methods for assessing emissions from a single source including situations where the application of the usual or preferred method is temporarily unavailable.

Proposed amendments

Additional amendments, planned to take affect for the 2015-16 reporting period, are proposed and currently open for comment until 30 January 2014. These include updates to emission factors and global warming potential (GWP) to reflect the most recent IPCC assessment, provision of additional estimation methods for carbon capture and storage and removal of guidance surrounding the calculation of embedded emissions in natural gas and legacy waste in landfill to reflect the repeal of the Clean Energy Act 2011. Further details of the amendments and instructions for how to go about making a submission are provided on the Department of Environment website.

Putting your best foot forward

With potential funding opportunities for carbon abatement through the ERF, rising energy costs and the removal of the carbon pricing mechanism, there has never been a better time to review your baseline emissions and evaluate or re-evaluate opportunities for mitigating carbon emissions as part of your carbon management strategy. For example increasing the frequency of assessing carbon emissions from annually to quarterly or monthly may provide you with valuable information for both identifying and evaluating ongoing opportunities as well as providing the necessary data to support a successful ERF project.

Further and more detailed information is available on the government’s website here: http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/greenhouse-gas-measurement/nger.

We encourage you to give Lisa a call on 3369 3699 or contact us via email for any NGER queries or assistance.