Climate Change Agreements

Climate Change Agreements (CCAs) are voluntary agreements allow energy intensive business users to receive a discount from the Climate Change Levy of up to 90% of the Levy, in return for meeting energy efficiency or carbon saving targets. (There is also a 100% exemption from the Levy for certain energy-intensive metallurgical and mineralogical industries.)

The first agreements ran from 2001 to 31 March 2013, and the second CCA scheme runs from 1 April 2013 to 21 December 2023. In 2004, the eligibility criteria for the UK's Climate Change Agreements (CCAs) were extended to cover other energy intensive sectors of industry not originally included within the arrangements for CCAs. Those sectors already eligible for CCAs were unaffected by the changes. CCA targets have been agreed with 53 industrial sectors across more than 9000 sites.

It was announced in 2007 that the CCA scheme would be extended by 4 years to 2017, subject to state aid approval. This is to provide industry with greater certainty for the medium term, and enable CCAs to continue to contribute significantly to the UK's Climate Change Programme.

The 2020 amendment extends the scheme in time.