The Safeguard Mechanism applies to all facilities that emit more than 100,000 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e) of covered emissions in a financial year (the reporting year).
Under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme, all emissions and energy data for facilities, including covered emissions data for safeguard facilities, must be reported to us by 31 October each year.
If a facility’s emissions exceed its baseline, it must manage any excess emissions by the compliance deadline:
- For the 2016–17 to 2022–23 reporting periods, the deadline was 1 March.
- For the 2023–24 reporting period, onwards, the deadline is 1 April.
Publishing requirements
We're required to publish information about all safeguard facilities for each reporting year. Current requirements include:
- the baseline emissions number in force for that year
- total reported and net emissions
- the responsible emitters for each facility
- any Australian carbon credit units surrendered.
Under the Safeguard Mechanism, we're also required to publish emissions for grid-connected electricity generator facilities.
Under the reformed scheme, there are additional publication requirements.
Additional requirements for the 2022–23 financial year:
- For safeguard facilities that surrender ACCUs equivalent to 30% or more of their baselines, we must publish the facility’s statement explaining why they haven’t undertaken more on-site abatement activities.
Additional requirements that will be published from the 2023–24 financial year onwards include:
- the amount of Safeguard Mechanism credit units (SMCs) issued to a facility
- the amount of a facility’s emissions broken down by carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide
- the amount of Australian carbon credit units (ACCUs) surrendered (if any) for compliance, broken down by the method under which the ACCUs were created.
No longer required:
- An estimate of the total number of ACCUs likely to be surrendered by facilities with ongoing MYMPs.
For each financial year between 1 July 2023 and 30 June 2030, we must also publish, by 15 April:
- the safeguard emissions for the previous financial year
- the net safeguard emissions for the previous financial year
- the 5‑year rolling average safeguard emissions for the previous financial year
- the total safeguard emissions for all financial years between 1 July 2020 and the end of the previous financial year.
2022–23 reporting year summary
The table below is the reporting year summary for 2022–23.
We take all reasonable efforts to ensure the information published on our website is accurate at the time of publication.
| Description | Total |
|---|---|
| Facilities covered under the Safeguard Mechanism | 219 |
| Combined covered emissions (million tonnes CO2-e) | 138.7 |
| Multi-year monitoring periods in place | 25 |
| ACCUs surrendered (total) | 1,218,000 |
Safeguard facilities data 2022–23
Publication notes
We've included some notes to consider for the published information.
- If a facility has had more than one baseline determination made, the most recently made one will be the baseline that is ‘current’
- Baselines that are withheld may be pending the submission of an application, or a decision under, section 25 of the NGER Act
- Under section 65 of the Rule, responsible emitters may apply for a multi-year monitoring period (MYMP) to be declared in relation to a facility
- For more information about the data around MYMP, refer to our multi-year monitoring period table
- Under section 56 of the Rule, we must vary any type of baseline to account for updates in relation to global warming potentials, with effect from the start of the relevant financial year
- To avoid counting offsets twice, a facility that is covered by the Safeguard Mechanism and generates ACCUs under the ACCU Scheme will have any ACCUs that are issued during a financial year added to its net emissions number
- This means that an affected safeguard facility’s net emissions number will be the total amount of covered emissions for the year, plus the total amount of ACCUs issued, minus any ACCUs surrendered
- If ACCUs are then delivered under an ACCU Scheme contract that were generated at a safeguard facility during the same financial year, that facility’s net emissions number is reduced by the number of ACCUs delivered under the contract