Environment Agency Charge proposal: fluorinated greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances

Overview

The Environment Agency administers the fluorinated greenhouse gases (F Gas) and ozone depleting substances (ODS) online services on behalf of England, Scotland and Wales. We use an annual quota and licensing system to make sure national and international obligations are met for the levels of controlled substances being imported and exported.

Our role is to manage businesses registering on these services. This involves:

• calculating quota and managing quota transactions
• determining licence applications
• reviewing annual reports
• working with businesses and HM Revenue & Customs to ensure ongoing compliance with the scheme
• providing guidance and a helpdesk

‘Quota’ is the amount of controlled substances that can be imported or produced in England, Scotland and Wales. This is described as equivalent tonnes of carbon dioxide for F Gas, and mass for ODS.

These activities, including the information technology developed to replace the EU services, have been government funded and are free for businesses to use.

The number of businesses using the F Gas and ODS services has increased, and the government funding we receive to manage these services is no longer sufficient. We will not be able to continue providing the same level of service without introducing charges to fully recover our costs.

This consultation sets out our new charging proposals for F Gas and ODS and we invite you to share your views. 

What we are consulting on

We are seeking to recover the full cost of our services through charges. We have reviewed our activities to assess the cost of delivering our services, inflationary pressures and incorporating the cost of new services that will allow us to continue to effectively regulate.

For F Gas we propose to introduce charges for:

• new registration from April 2025
• annual subsistence

For ODS we propose to introduce charges for:

• new registrations from April 2025
• new applications for import export licences and quota
• laboratory ODS service declaration (LabODS)
• annual subsistence

About this consultation

We would like your views on the proposed charges for F Gas and ODS. The consultation includes:

• this consultation document which lays out the proposals for our new charging scheme
• the draft charging scheme
• a guide explaining how we calculate our charges

The documents are available in the 'related' section at the bottom of this page.

Why your views matter

We would like you to share your views on the proposed new charges for F Gas and ODS. We welcome your feedback as it helps us to understand the impact of our proposals and make an informed decision.

Please click on the 'online consultation' link below to answer the consultation questions.