The new phase builds on the last, set up in 2001, and is again intended to help printers to reduce their exposure to the Climate Change Levy (CCL). In fact, the new phase, set to run until 2023, seems to offer an even sweeter deal than the last one, with those signed up able to claim back up to 90% of the levy charged on electricity and 65% on gas, providing they commit to reducing their energy consumption by 8.4%, a lower target than the previous one of 12%. Furthermore, printers using more than 6,000MWh of electricity per year, and who would therefore be bound by the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, will now be exempt from it, if they subscribe to the BPIF agreement.

However, while many businesses on the last phase saw substantial savings, the new scheme brings with it revised frameworks and, against a constantly shifting landscape of environmental legislation, printers must examine the options carefully.

It’s a question of calculating which will be less costly for your business: the BPIF scheme or the CCL. Printers signing up for the BPIF’s scheme must pay a yearly fee, ranging from £1,000 to £5,000, depending on their size. Plus, for the first time, the government has introduced its own charge of £185 for each site that joins.

Steve Walker, BPIF commercial products manager and the man tasked with rolling out the programme, reports that in most cases this will be money well spent. "The average saving is £25,000-£30,000, a saving of about £8.2m for the industry overall," he says. "However, there are costs and efforts involved in attaining such discounts, which means it might not be suitable for everyone."

The group that may find it most tricky to save enough to justify the sign-up costs are small printers, says Walker. While the scheme is designed to encourage printers to reduce energy use and thereby make further savings on their energy bills, Walker says that the initiative is "purely, squarely and unashamedly" aimed at larger companies when it comes to cutting a company’s CCL obligations: "If you use a million kilowatt hours, you’re saving £4,700. Two million is £9,400. The larger the company, the more it will save. There are some saving in excess of £100,000 a year.

"But if you’re a small business using, say, 192,000KWh of electricity per year, you’re looking at an annual levy saving of £630," he continues. "So you won’t stand to benefit as much as other companies might."

Energy-efficient investment
Polestar Group, a participant in the last scheme, would add that it is larger rather than smaller firms that will be able to afford the very latest energy-efficient kit. "If you can invest in a new-generation press, that will move you substantially toward your target," says group risk manager Gary Marshall. "But we’re not all Sainsbury’s and M&S equivalents, with lots of cash to invest in new energy-efficiency options, so many printers will have to explore other ways to bring their consumption down."

And in fact there is cause for larger companies to also think carefully before signing up. According to Walker, around 40% of those on the last phase failed to meet the standard, suggesting a company’s size is no guarantee of success in achieving the 8.4% energy reduction target. Worrying as this sounds, this actually wasn’t too problematic for printers signed up to the last scheme. In the last phase, if, after each two-year reporting period, a business had failed to hit its goals, it could either come off the scheme free of charge, or purchase the amount of carbon dioxide it failed to achieve its target by, which amounted to the fairly modest sum of £1.20-£1.50 per tonne.

But a prediction by Walker that the same number of printers – "maybe more" – will fail to hit their targets this time around, is made more ominous by the fact that, for this next phase, any printer falling short of their target will incur a considerably higher charge of £12 per tonne of carbon.

"In an industry not making much money, this isn’t a welcome change," says Walker. "But from the government’s perspective, what’s the point of having a scheme that’s doesn’t cost much if you fail it?"

Another potential drawback even larger printers will need to be aware of, is one which also applied to the last agreement phase. The way energy efficiency is calculated involves taking a typical year’s baseline figure (typically 2008’s) and seeking to use less energy per unit throughput each year. This, reports Walker, could see expanding businesses penalised.

"If your business expands, you’ll inevitably use more energy and, as you grow, so does the gap you have to bridge efficiency-wise," he explains, citing the example of a printing firm that installed its own finishing line to counteract sending its finishing across the country. "Installing the finishing line was better for the planet and cheaper for the business," he says. "But it meant they suddenly had a huge increase in energy use with no corresponding increase in throughput. There was no way they could reach the target."

Walker is, however, hopeful that the scheme will still lessen the burden of the CCL for many companies.

"If we didn’t have this relative measure, we would have to use an absolute measure instead, which would put a cap on growth. So it was an industry decision to use this method," he says.

Walker highlights that there are ways for printers unimpressed by the deal to better their chances of saving. In regards to the concern that expanding printers won’t be able to hit their targets, Walker points out that there is a certain degree of flexibility in the scheme to be taken advantage of. His advice would be: "Choose a year for your baseline year where you used a lot of energy, as this will give you a more favourable figure to reduce."

Government flexibility
And printers should remember that, despite not being perfectly suited to all printers, the scheme does exist to help reduce the UK’s carbon emissions overall and so the government is prepared to offer some flexibility to help businesses achieve this. If a printer’s throughput drops significantly – perhaps they’ve taken a press out – then targets and measures will be shifted to account for this. Similarly, printers who can demonstrate that they’ve already taken measures to dramatically reduce their emissions and so may struggle to meet the 8.4% target, are able to put this forward for special consideration.

"If a printer really feels that the target is unrealistic for them they can put together a consultant’s report demonstrating this and speak to the government about an alternative," says Walker. "They’re always prepared to listen, and so it is the case that there are companies working to different targets."

To the complaint that small firms don’t have the capital to invest in the latest energy-efficient kit in the way that larger firms do, environmental consultant Clare Taylor counters that there are still plenty of ways to cut consumption cheaply.

"There’s always a base load of energy being used away from printing itself," she says. "You’re heating and lighting the building, and running IT equipment. Those are all easy efficiency wins and have no bearing on your throughput at all."

Taylor adds that there are a number of grants and loans available to help offset the expense of investing in energy efficiency technology. "The point of the scheme, really, is to give printers the opportunity to save money and then reinvest it in energy-efficiency measures which will help save them money in the long run," she says. "The Green Deal and loans from the Carbon Trust operate in the same way, and can help businesses make the changes they need to hit the target."

This type of support is well designed for smaller businesses, adds Polestar’s Marshall: "These kinds of grants tend to work better for smaller companies anyway," he says. "If you can work them together with the BPIF’s CCL reduction scheme then you have the immediate advantage of reduced levy payments plus a helping hand to reduce consumption, hit targets and therefore continue receiving the scheme’s benefits."

So while a company’s size should be taken into account when deciding whether it should sign up, there are ways for smaller printers to benefit. And larger firms should remember that size in itself is no guarantee of success. Rather, a range of factors, including whether a printer is planning on expanding energy consumption without increasing throughput, and the firm’s current environmental position, must be taken into account.

The best course of action, concludes Marshall, is to seek expert advice. "Anybody interested in the scheme should just talk to the BPIF," he says. "They can help ascertain whether it’s right for a particular business. If it is, great. If not, it’s not the end of the world. Ultimately the scheme is designed to help the country fulfil its national emissions obligations so it has been designed in such a way as to benefit as many as possible."