Directive Decoder

While RoHS legislation started life in Brussels it continues to spread around the world in its various forms.

Now Australia has performed an impact assessment for local adoption of RoHS. A survey of industry was commissioned via a website.

To date the impact assessment has not been made available publicly, nor is there a policy decision by the government.

A report was produced, at the back end of last year, by Hyder Consulting for the Department of Environment and Water Resources as part of the preliminary environmental and economic assessment of Australian RoHS policy.

The study considered three RoHS policy models identified by an Australian Government roundtable in 2005:

a) No government intervention
(No action to harmonise with the EU’s RoHS Directive)
b) Voluntary code of practice plus possible co-regulation
(For introduction in 2007 followed by a co-regulatory or regulatory scheme in 2011)
c) National legislation
Mandatory obligations under RoHS legislation within four years

Introduction

The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme forms part of the UK Government's drive towards a low-carbon economy. In its simplest form it is a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emissions, similar to the European Union's ETS scheme, but focusing on smaller, less energy-intensive organisations.

Purpose

The purpose of the scheme is to encourage companies to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by making investments into energy efficient technologies, or to invest in on-site renewable electricity generation.

Scope

All organisations (including the government, schools etc.) that have electricity supplied that is covered by an half hourly meter (HHM) and that consumed more than 6,000MWh of electricity during 2008 (the base year) will be included in the scheme. These organisations should be contacted by the Environment Agency in the near future, to make them aware of their new obligations.

Organisations that did not consume 6,000MWh of electricity, but that are metered on a half-hourly basis will be required to make an information disclosure to the CRC.