The arrival in the office of the grand envelope from the United Nations in New York heralds great things! Joking aside, and whilst there is a danger of the participation taking over the objectives, Torse has signed up to the UN Global Compact.

In simple terms Torse has committed to participating in a meaningful way to the Global Compact’s principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.

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Further to Torse’s recent efforts to elicit from Chris Huhne (UK Energy Secretary) the government’s strategy to wrest control of UK Energy supply from oligopolistic suppliers; out rolled the stock response of a current review and paraphrased abstract from Ofgem’s remit relating to protecting consumers and ensuring proper competition and wholesale power liquidity.

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Torse has recently been in contact with the Environmental Technology Centre [ETC], a research institute at Nottingham University. The primary focus of the ETC is to provide a service to Small to Medium sized businesses whereby they are able to provide up to 5 days energy usage analysis of a business in terms of their premises and practices with a report featuring advice and recommendations at the end of this process.

READ MORE ABOUT ETC AND TORSE

In an effort to assist and, where possible, protect small businesses and vunerable consumers paying increasing energy costs, Ofgem have imposed a set of guidelines for energy suppliers. The Ofgem press release is attached below but a brief summary of these changes are as follows:

1. New requirements on written estimates following visits from face-to-face salespeople will come into force on 18 January 2010. Essentially, this would put an end to Contracts being signed that don’t match what was ‘promised’.

2. Doubling the threshold of debt a customer can carry and still switch supplier to £200 will come into force on 18 January 2010. This reduces the practical obstacle that has delayed many clients in the transfer process.

3. Further clarity in printed billing information [via PDF or post] from suppliers and the production of annual statements to customers if these are not already in existance from July 2010. This provides improved billing management.

4. Requirement for the six big energy companies to show more openess regarding their margins from the business community in these difficult financial times. This should enable businesses to see to what extent they are being exploited within the market.

Ofgem Assistance for SME and Consumers Press Release PDF