Lowered Threshold for Emissions Reporting for Alberta Facilities

Written by Kay She, Thomas W. McInerney, Duncan M. McPherson and Sharon G.K. Singh

Effective January 1, 2018, all facilities emitting 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) per year or more in Alberta are required to submit annual reports on their emissions to the Alberta government.

Previously, the reporting threshold was set for facilities emitting 50,000 tonnes of CO₂e per year or more. To clarify, these facilities are not required to comply with the recent Carbon Competitiveness Incentive Regulation (CCIR), which applies only to facilities emitting 100,000 tonnes of CO₂e per year or more (see Alberta Replaces Specified Gas Emitters Regulation with Carbon Competitiveness Incentive Regulation). The CCIR replaces the existing Specified Gas Emitters Regulation (SGER) for compliance years 2018 onwards.

The lowered reporting threshold is made to the Specified Gas Reporting Standard, which is codified in the Specified Gas Reporting Regulation (SGRR). The SGRR used to work in concert with the SGER and act as a reporting requirement that operates at a lower threshold to allow government to track facilities who may be subject to the SGER in the future. It will continue to play that role to the CCIR that now replaces the outgoing SGER.

Facilities caught under the new threshold must submit a specified gas report to the Alberta Climate Change Office via Environment and Climate Change Canada’s (ECCC) Single Window Information Management (SWIM) Greenhouse Gas Reporting System. Facilities must report their 2017 greenhouse gas emissions by June 1, 2018.

ECCC has provided updated technical guidance on how to report through SWIM in advance of the 2017 reporting period, and anticipates more technical guidance to be released in March 2018 to guide new and existing reporters.

For more information, please contact a member of the Bennett Jones Climate Change and Emissions Trading group.