CARBONTRACE Getting emissions from A-Zero

CarbonTrace tracks the volume of fuel purchased on your fleet’s Certas Energy Fuel Cards and automatically calculates the amount of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and greenhouse gases that are produced by burning the fuel.

Our CarbonTrace reporting system will then automatically issue a weekly report via email on your business’ overall emissions data for the volume of fuel purchased on your fleet’s Certas Energy Fuel Cards.

The UK is committed to bringing all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. As a result, businesses are under increasing pressure to monitor and reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, with a variety of regulations in place to ensure progress towards wider climate objectives.

Certas Energy has launched the CarbonTrace initiative to make it easy for businesses to track their emissions and comply with emissions reporting requirements as set out under the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) and Streamlined Energy & Carbon Reporting Regulations (SECR).

The ESOS Regulations aims to help monitor energy consumption and energy efficiency actions taken by businesses across the UK, whereas SECR aims to establish the environmental impacts of organisations under six main categories – greenhouse gases; water; waste; materials and resource efficiency; biodiversity/ecosystem services; and emissions to air, land and water.

Under ESOS, businesses are required to disclose total energy consumption and associated emissions from transport activities once every four years. SECR requires businesses to report on their carbon emissions and energy usage for each financial year.

Businesses that fail to comply with either of the regulations could face eye watering fines – including fixed penalties of up to £50,000.

ESOS requires organisations and businesses that qualify as a ‘large undertaking’ to comply with reporting requirements. That means if your business employs 250 or more people, and/or has an annual turnover in excess of €50 million (£44,845,000) plus an annual balance sheet total in excess of €43 million (£38,566,700), you are required to participate in ESOS. If your company is part of a group and one or more of the companies meets the above criteria, then all entities in the group must comply with ESOS.

Businesses must comply with annual SECR reporting requirements if they satisfy two of the following three criteria: employ 250 or more people; turnover in excess of £36 million; and/or have a balance sheet of over £18 million.

Vehicle emissions are one the most obvious sources of carbon emissions and – as the famous adage goes – if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Tracking emissions is essential in getting carbon levels under control, and CarbonTrace supports businesses to identify where improvements can be made for positive change.

To further address climate concerns, we’re working with leading offsetting organisation Carbon Footprint Ltd to invest 10% of all income from the CarbonTrace scheme into high-quality carbon reduction projects worldwide. All projects are independently verified and certified against Verified Carbon Standards (VCS) – a globally recognised benchmark for carbon offsetting.

For businesses looking to make a greater impact, click here to find out more about offsetting carbon emissions from your fuel order or reducing emissions at source with alternative fuels.

Yes. Customers are able to access all carbon emissions data from fuel purchased on their Certas Energy Fuel Card via a dedicated browser-based dashboard. From the dashboard, customers are able to define set reporting periods and export the data to an Excel spreadsheet. Weekly certificates will also be stored and available for download via the same dashboard.

Certas Energy Fuel Card customers will be charged £1 a week per certificate they receive to track fleet emissions. The charge will be added directly to customers’ Fuel Card invoices.

Using DEFRA’s annually published emission rates, we calculate your emissions from the volume drawn on your fuel cards. Your initial volume data will extended back 12 months prior to the launch of the CarbonTrace service and will be added to continually.