# The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme Order 2020, Paragraph 59: Verification report


(1) On the basis of the information collected, the verifier must issue a verification report on each annual emissions report subject to verification.
(2) The verification report must include a verification opinion verifying the annual emissions report as satisfactory or unsatisfactory.
(3) For the purposes of sub-paragraph (2), the annual emissions report will be considered to have been verified as satisfactory only if it is free of material misstatements and must not be verified as satisfactory if—
(a) it contains material misstatements that were not corrected before the verification report was issued;
(b) the scope of verification is too limited pursuant to pursuant to paragraph 60 and the verifier could not obtain sufficient evidence to issue a verification opinion with reasonable assurance that the annual emissions report is free from material misstatements;
(c) non-conformities, individually or combined with other non-conformities, provide insufficient clarity and prevent the verifier from stating with reasonable assurance that the maritime operator’s annual emissions report is free from material misstatement.
(4) The verification report must contain the following elements—
(a) the name of the maritime operator and the IMO unique company and registered owner identification number;
(b) a title making it clear that it is a verification report;
(c) the identity of the verifier, including the name and business email address of a contact person;
(d) the objectives and scope of the verification;
(e) a reference to the annual emissions report and the scheme year subject to verification;
(f) details, including version number and date of issue, of any emissions monitoring plan issued by the regulator that is relevant to the verification as well as period of validity for each plan;
(g) the aggregated maritime emissions data submitted in accordance with paragraph 38;
(h) a reference to the verification standards used;
(i) a summary of the verifier’s procedures, including information on and dates of site visits, information on the reasons for conducting virtual site visits;
(j) the responsibilities of the maritime operator, regulator and verifier;
(k) a verification opinion;
(l) a description of uncorrected misstatements and non-conformities as referred to in paragraph 56, including their nature and scale, whether or not they have a material impact and the elements of the annual emissions report to which they relate, if any;
(m) any issues of non-compliance with the monitoring and reporting requirements in this Schedule which have become apparent during the verification;
(n) a description of any non-conformity issue as defined in sub-paragraph (a)(ii) of the definition of non-conformity in paragraph 40, which have become apparent during the verification;
(o) any data gaps and the corresponding amount of emissions;
(p) where applicable, recommendations for improvement;
(q) the names of the UK ETS lead auditor, the independent reviewer and, where applicable, the UK ETS auditor and the technical expert that were involved in the verification of the annual emissions report;
(r) the date of the verification report and signature of an authorised person on behalf of the verifier, including the name of that person.
(5) The verifier must describe the misstatements, non-conformities and non-compliances in sufficient detail in the verification report to allow the maritime operator as well as the regulator to understand, including the following aspects—
(a) the size and nature of the misstatement, non-conformity or non-compliance;
(b) why the misstatement has material effect, or not;
(c) to which element of the annual emissions report the misstatement refers, or to what element of the emissions monitoring plan the non-conformity refers;
(d) to which paragraph in this Schedule the non-compliance relates.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1265/schedule/2A/paragraph/59 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/greenhouse-gas-emissions-trading-scheme-order-2020/schedule-2A/paragraph-59
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.