This thesis looks at the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme. This is a green tax on energy consumption that targets large businesses not already covered by the EU ETS or CCAs. The CRC has been reformed on numerous occasions and will now come to an end in 2019. Importantly, the CRC has received relatively little academic attention, especially in legal scholarship. Drawing upon 31 original, semi structured interviews with regulatees, solicitors and the Environment Agency; and a quantitative analysis of emissions under the scheme, this PhD will begin to tell the story of how the CRC has been perceived by those who pay it.
This is an account of how different regulatory aspects send deeper messages to regulatees. In particular, this thesis considers: stability; competence of the regulator; nudging; positive incentives; and the efficiency of the CRC. As such, this thesis draws on a wide range of literature in order to analyse the above themes in light of the original data from the empirical study. This thesis concludes that how regulation is packaged and presented to regulatees is critical and can affect how they engage with a regulatory scheme such as the CRC
