Optimal Monitoring, the specialists in white label energy, carbon and waste software, announces today the launch of its partner programme for accountancy firms.
The partner programme will enable accountancy firms to add the Optimal Monitoring Carbon Management Platform to their existing services, which will allow them to finitely measure their clients’ energy usage and therefore calculate current and future costs – a new legislative requirement for many UK companies’ annual reporting as of April 2013.
With Mandatory Carbon Reporting due to be imposed in April 2013, all UK stock market-listed companies will be required to submit emissions data as part of their annual reports, including emissions from within their supply chains. This report will be made a requisite part of annual reporting, making accountants ideally placed to gather the skillsets and tools to deliver not only reporting capabilities, but also a consultancy service to help clients reduce their energy usage year on year – and therefore reduce costs.
The Optimal Monitoring Carbon Management Platform can be used to deliver transparency and finite measurement of a client’s energy consumption, providing essential intelligence of where cost savings can be made.
Duncan Everett, Managing Director of Optimal Monitoring, continues, “Traditionally accountants will examine the profit and loss sheets, briefly comparing energy consumption costs year-on-year. Typically, if there is an increase in spend, it is often put down to general energy cost increases and ends there, no one questions what could be done to address this line item because accountants lack the knowledge or tools to investigate fully. Triggered by the imminent annual reporting requirements, accountants can now use the Optimal Monitoring Platform to gather insight and evidence to allow them to make educated recommendations and reduce energy consumption and costs. As companies look to get their ‘carbon books’ in order, accountancy firms should be the first port of call for help to do so.”
Jae Mather, Director of Sustainability at HW Fisher, a London-based firm of chartered accountants that offers sustainability services, explains, “Currently, there are only a handful of accountancy firms who offer a sustainability service and this has to change – and inevitably will as more accountancy firms realise that they have an unprecedented opportunity to carve themselves a niche while carbon measurement and reporting is still a little understood, yet vitally important, discipline. The accountancy world has become compliance-led, especially amongst those acting for larger companies. When it comes to energy costs, accountants focus simply on the usual audit processes of recording what is spent and when, with scant regard for how the costs could be controlled. With the arrival of the new carbon reporting requirements and their intrinsic connection with annual financial reporting, accountants can and should move beyond the typical process of recording costs and into challenging how energy costs can be measured, monitored and reduced.”
This partner programme has been specifically designed for UK-based accountancy firms and will replace the sector’s direct sales operation within Optimal Monitoring. Optimal Monitoring will support accountancy firms immediately from partnering and throughout the relationship, with education, training and sales and marketing support. The programme is designed to make it as easy as possible for accountancy firms to increase the ongoing value in their current services, with intrinsic measurement, insight and justification making them invaluable to their client base.
Everett concludes, “There is a burgeoning opportunity for accountancy firms right now. However to capitalise on this opportunity, accountancy firms need to build their knowledge of the sustainability agenda, which is as it stands new territory for most accountancy firms. The Optimal Monitoring Carbon Management Platform provides partners with an innovative yet fully proven easy to use energy management solution that delivers transparent information which can be readily presented to the end-user. Easing reporting for accountancy firms, the platform collates and delivers the data to their clients in a easy to read format to supply an understanding of energy usage which until now has not been available. We feel the Optimal Monitoring Platform is the essential tool to deliver accountancy firms that specialist skill set they need to excel as carbon reporting becomes mandatory.”
For more information on the Optimal Monitoring Partner Programme, please email partner@optimalmonitoring.com or visit the Optimal Monitoring website for further details.
