HOW WE TACKLED CLIMATE CHANGE
'EPA’s cap and trade scheme has demonstrated the value of real life experience.'
Mr LLOYD FLEMING Managing Consultant Climate Response Marchment Hill Consulting

We honed our carbon trading skills
We developed and introduced an internal “cap and trade” scheme to build our internal carbon emissions trading capabilities.

What we did
With PricewaterhouseCoopers and an external advisory panel we scoped and designed the fundamentals of our trading scheme.
Our cap and trade scheme began on 1 January 2009. By implementing our scheme ahead of the Australian Government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme, we are increasing our knowledge of emissions trading, building our capacity to service clients impacted by the national scheme and gaining practical experience in the challenges some of our clients will face.

A cap and trade scheme is a form of emissions trading that involves setting an overall limit, or cap, on the amount of emissions participants at each site can discharge. Permits, equal to one unit of carbon pollution, are traded in a carbon market.
Participants can choose to either reduce emissions on site or purchase permits to cover their emissions. Their decision will depend on the relative cost of each option.

The overall cap is reduced over time to encourage continual adoption of more cost effective abatement projects and emissions reductions.
We have been measuring and reporting our annual greenhouse gas emissions since 2005 to better understand our carbon footprint, track our emissions reductions and purchase carbon offsets to achieve carbon neutrality.

A designated trader at each EPA site, assisted by one or more members of a trading team, is responsible for ensuring the site meets its cap through emissions reductions and/or by trading permits.

We have committed to an overall emissions reduction target of 10 per cent by 2010.

Our cap and trade scheme will include emissions from our electricity and transport use that are responsible for almost 80 per cent of our total emissions.

What we said
“To reduce emissions on site and achieve our targets, we largely focused on achieving behaviour change, particularly given that EPA had already invested in the most practical infrastructure changes (such as changes to lighting and air conditioning). One of our biggest challenges, therefore, was how we communicated and effectively engaged staff.”
The HWT and IBM trading team

What you said
“EPA’s cap and trade scheme has demonstrated the value of real life experience. The scheme mirrors as far as possible the situation facing businesses under a future emissions trading scheme. The results of the trading activity showed just how quickly and easily trading behaviour emerges, with some participants adopting a passive compliance approach while others developed strategies to maximise existing advantages (for example, lower abatement costs). Some participants even tried to game the system.”
Mr Lloyd Fleming
Managing Consultant Climate Response
Marchment Hill Consulting

Read about our Carbon innovators roundtable...

Read about how we acted to protect our changing environment...