NGER 2008-09 reporting deadline looms; changes afoot next year
Corporations that exceed the national greenhouse and energy reporting (NGER) threshold for the 2008-09 financial year had until August 31 to register their details with the federal climate change department.
It is the first year that the Australian Government will compel hundreds of companies to report on their corporate and facilities’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, energy production and energy consumption by October 31.
Corporate groups whose operations generate 125 kilotonnes or more of GHG emissions during 2008-09 are among the first to have to report on what they’re doing.
For 2009-2010, an 87.5 kilotonnes threshold kicks in, reducing to 50 kilotonnes from July 1, 2010. Australia’s first energy production reporting threshold of 500 terajoules or more started on July 1, 2008. The 2009-10 energy threshold drops to 350 terajoules, then 200 terajoules on July 1, 2010. Under the NGER Act 2007, any corporate group controlling a single facility that generated 25 kilotonnes or more of carbon dioxide, produced 100 terajoules or more of energy, or used at least 100 terajoules of energy during 2008-09 must report on its operations by October 31, 2009. However, some aspects of the NGER Act could be amended during August 2009 federal parliamentary sittings, with the Senate slated to consider the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Amendment Bill 2009 on August 13.
On June 23, federal climate change minister Penny Wong and minister assisting the climate change minister Greg Combet released an amendment to the NGER Act that they said was designed to increase flexibility and lower costs for businesses required to report on their GHG emissions and energy information.
Wong and Combet said industry stakeholders had highlighted that some businesses obliged to report under the NGER Act from 2008-09 “will have to amend their reporting arrangements, at some cost,” before the carbon pollution reduction scheme started in July 2011.
The legislative amendment introduced a “reporting transfer certificate” concept that would enable companies to voluntarily transfer a single facility’s reporting obligations specified under the NGER Act from a controlling corporation to a member of a different corporate group that financially controlled the facility, the ministers said.
Combet said the amendment would “ensure a high degree of continuity” between current and future reporting arrangements, “provide greater certainty” and lead to reduced compliance costs for businesses.
Meanwhile, the Senate agreed to the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Amendment Bill 2009 on September 7 after the Bill was circulated in the chamber on June 25 and first introduced to the House of Representatives in March. The Bill has passed both houses of parliament.
According to the Rudd government, the Bill was designed to “clarify” definitions, require audit results to be included on the National Greenhouse and Energy Register, “extend secrecy requirements to cover audit information” and allow the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to review some greenhouse and energy data officer (GEDO) decisions. The Bill would remove the need for GEDO to “publish corporate-level” energy production information and make “consequential amendments” to the Act, the government said.
