UK: the Climate Change Act 2008 and company reporting

The Climate Change Bill received Royal Assent on November 26: the Climate Change Act 2008 is now on the statute book and a copy has been published by OPSI and is available here in PDF and here in HMTL. With regard to companies' reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, the Act does not contain specific reporting requirements. Instead, Section 85 ("Regulations about reporting by companies") provides:

(1) The Secretary of State must, not later than 6th April 2012— 

(a) make regulations under section 416(4) of the Companies Act 2006 (c. 46) requiring the directors’ report of a company to contain such information as may be specified in the regulations about emissions of greenhouse gases from activities for which the company is responsible,
or
(b) lay before Parliament a report explaining why no such regulations have been made.

(2) Subsection (1)(a) is complied with if regulations are made containing provision in relation to companies, and emissions, of a description specified in the regulations.

Background information about the Act is available on the DEFRA website here. It is interesting to compare the UK legislative framework with that established in Australia under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 - see here for further information.