On 27th June 2022, the UK government announced plans to modernise the terms of the Energy Charter to limit the costly legal challenges of protecting fossil fuel investment. The new agreement, which is to be signed in November 2022, will ensure that investments in fossil fuel projects will not get any legal protection in the country, and instead, push a stronger focus on promoting clean and affordable energy.
While it’s hard to make any precise calculations, it is safe to say that fossil fuel projects will face more legal obligations and higher costs compared to their renewable counterparts.
Accounting for this new development requires organisations to not update their compliance management process but also internal corporate policy, leading to a critical question of how companies can align internal corporate policy with regulatory laws to optimise regulatory compliance management.
Align energy compliance management with corporate policy
Complementing corporate policy with energy compliance can help organisations navigate a turbulent industry by adjusting regular business operations to meet legal demands—an element that could be critical for organisations in the energy industry.
Understanding your regulatory environment
Devising an understanding of the energy regulatory environment is critical for organisations. Without it, it is impossible to anticipate pending regulatory updates that could affect business operations. In contrast, devising this understanding will give you insight into how regulators are influencing the energy industry’s direction, giving you a better idea of how regulation can impact the industry.
Creating a better regulatory environment requires organisations to build out their compliance functions. This could mean equipping existing teams with new technology that would allow them to connect regulatory updates and internal operations using automation, allowing you to adjust internal operations to meet compliance updates.
Creating effective policies and procedures
Internal policies and procedures are an integral part of the framework that governs business operations and offer guidance to employees on following the rules, which is critical for compliance. By establishing an appropriate internal framework, you have a solid foundation for aligning regulatory rules with corporate policies.
Furthermore, a robust internal management policy helps distribute responsibilities, establish new protocols, and set a process for tracking and training policies and procedures to ensure employees understand them. In other words, it can affect how well your organisation can respond to compliance updates.
Building a detailed regulatory depository
As regulatory compliance information becomes more detailed and comprehensive, compliance needs to have a reliable, trustworthy source that employees can access. Having a repository helps you streamline compliance measures and also provides a point of reference for all key stakeholders, making it easier to manage compliance measures.
Furthermore, managing a repository can help you align compliance policies with corporate procedures, making it easier to ensure that compliance can meet all legal requirements, new and old. It can help you with several operations, such as internal assessment procedures, which can lead to better regulatory procedures.
Establishing a GRC policy management framework
Governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) help organisations achieve business objectives by instilling good business practices into everyday life by incorporating multiple disciplines, including compliance, third-party risk management, and internal audit.
Building a GRC framework helps you merge energy compliance into your corporate policy, making it easier to account for external factors that could significantly affect business operations. This would allow you to structure internal corporate policies to meet compliance regulations and optimise regulatory compliance management.
Meeting energy regulatory requirements while improving corporate policy management
As the UK and EU continue to make the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, we can expect energy compliance regulations to change rapidly in the next few years. Hence, it falls to organisations to ensure that they have a policy framework in place to help them adjust their internal operations and meet the latest regulatory updates.
Building such a framework would allow organisations to optimise regulatory compliance management by streamlining functions, reducing the time, effort, and cost of managing energy regulatory procedures while adjusting to an ever-evolving energy regulation industry.
At EnregE, we help organisations meet the challenges of energy compliance management with the first and only automated platform that helps organisations understand how energy regulation law can affect internal operations while reducing costs.