BPF Sign Historic Climate Change Agreement

On 1st October at the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the BPF Director-General, Peter Davis, signed with a senior DECC official a Climate Change Agreement the Plastics Industry. At the same time the first wave of 106 sites were approved and signed meaning these companies will have an almost immediate benefit of up to an 80% discount on the Climate Change Levy (CCL) they pay on electricity and LPG. A further wave of sites will follow, but they must be registered by 23rd October to benefit from the scheme in 2009. Company sites that miss this deadline will be unable to benefit until April 2011.

The BPF has set up a company BPF Energy to run the scheme, aided by our energy consultants Inenco. In exchange for the CCL discount, the scheme and its members must have achieved a 12% reduction in energy use, based on their 2006 usage, by October 2010.

Peter Davis Director-General of the BPF says:

"After years of hard work and lobbying by BPF staff we now have this historic agreement which in tough times will reduce our members’ costs substantially and have real environmental benefits.  At last we have a level playing field with other materials such as metals, glass, paper and board, who have had their own CCAs for many years."

"We had a setback in January when the EU Competition Commissioner called for a further investigation into our application, but after the BPF wrote to Ministers suggesting modifications were made and these were incorporated into the Budget's Finance Act and approved by both Houses of Parliament."

"It has been a long haul, but we got there in the end. I would particularly like to thank the BPF's Philip Law, Alan Davey and Stephen Hunt, Inenco, and DECC officials for all their hard work in making this historic agreement a reality."

ENDS

For further information on this press release, please contact Anthony Roberts, British Plastics Federation, 6 Bath Place, Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3JE, tel 020 7457 5043, fax 020 7457 5045, email: [email protected]

Notes for editors:

1) British Plastics Federation (BPF) is the UK trade association for the plastics industry - representing the whole supply chain including polymer producers, distributors, additives suppliers, machinery manufacturers, processors and recyclers.

2) BPF Energy administers the Climate Change Agreement for plastics processors on behalf of the BPF and is supported by Inenco.