ICM ETS passes milestone by Neil Duffy

ICM ETS Ltd has performed its first pre-verification assessment for a large business aircraft operator, Gama Aviation. This marks a significant milestone as the aviation industry prepares to be verified under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) for the first time.

A pre-verification assessment is a process which mimics the full legal verification and involves inspecting documents, reviewing data and interviewing personnel involved at each stage of ETS monitoring. It is designed to help the operator identify any areas which have the potential to become an issue during a legal audit and give them time to correct the problem before the official verification begins.

Although the industry has resisted entry into the scheme, Gama have been proactive in preparing their monitoring systems, and Sam Walker, Gama’s ETS co-ordinator, said, “This was a fantastic opportunity to test our monitoring systems and to highlight any areas for potential further development.”

As the aviation industry prepares to have its emissions verified under a mandatory scheme for the first time, many operators’ staff will not have experienced a process like verification before. Sam added, “It has also shown our staff what to expect during the full verification and helped them to understand how their role relates to the ETS monitoring process as a whole.”

The assessment took two days on site.The team was led by Lucy Candlin of Future Perfect, with Neil Duffy  from ICM ETS providing the aviation knowledge. At the end of the assessment, Gama were presented with an Issues Log, listing the areas which may be developed in order to ensure a smoother audit, ease the administrative burden of compliance and an explanation of what the regulators expect. This helps to ensure their systems meet the requirements of the scheme when the time comes to report their emissions and tonne-km data.
 
While aviation is new to the EU ETS, static installations have been reporting their emissions for several years under the scheme. As a result, the regulators have existing expectations of what operators are required to do. Understanding these expectations, as well as the aviation specific issues relating the ETS, and interpreting them both in the context of each other is vital to performing verifications. For this reason, ICM ETS has been working in partnership with Future Perfect Limited, combining our aviation experience with their verification experience to develop and deliver a verification service designed specifically for aircraft operators.

In addition to our pre-verification service, in order to help operators prepare for the scheme, ICM ETS and Future Perfect will be offering a two day training course in July. This course is designed to help operators understand how to set up their monitoring processes and the level of control the regulators expect. For more information, please click here.

If you are interested in undergoing a pre-verification assessment, or want more information about the formal verification process, please click here.

We also have a detailed summary explaining how the scheme applies to aviation, which is available here.

We are currently conducting a survey of aircraft operators to discover how well they have prepared for the EU ETS. If you wish to take part, please visit  www.ets-survey.eu.