All operators on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) may soon have to pay to report their energy, emissions, waste and chemical data to the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) via the Environmental Emissions Monitoring System (EEMS), BMT Cordah Ltd, a leading independent environmental consultancy firm, has warned.
Operators are legally required to submit this information to the DECC. Some of this data, along with data from onshore industrial installations, is sent to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and later published on the internet as part of the UK Pollutant Release and Transfer Register http://prtr.defra.gov.uk/
Until now operators have not had to pay to report the data to EEMS via Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets. However, at the end of next month (30th June), Collabro, the company which produces the spreadsheets and manages EEMS, is to stop providing these spreadsheets free of charge.
This leaves operators with two options: they can either develop their own in-house system to generate the XML computer code required to report; or they can pay to use one of the third-party solutions offered by a number of companies which enable reporting of environmental data to EEMS.
Stephanie Tate, a consultant at BMT Cordah, said, “The time left to trial and adopt new systems for EEMS reporting is rapidly running out, and operators should seek alternative arrangements to ensure that they meet their legal obligations.”
(www.bmtcordah.com)