On 31 January 2011, DECC requested views from local authorities on a way forward on sharing information on greenhouse gas emissions from local authority own estate and operations. DECC has now revised the request to take into account a number of issues, such as:
- ensuring the data collection and publication is in line with international reporting standards
- reducing the burden of data collection on local authorities partly through aligning the data with the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme
- aiming to embed accountability for local authorities’ own carbon emissions at local-authority level
DECC signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Local Government (LG) Group on 9 March 2011 to recognise the pivotal role local authorities have in reducing emissions at the local level. DECC’s request on sharing information on greenhouse gas emissions from local authority own estate and operations forms the first milestone in the Annex of the MOU.
To confirm the process, Minister for Climate Change Gregory Barker wrote to chief executives of local councils in England on 13 April 2011.
DECC's request
DECC’s request is for local authorities to follow the same guidance that was published for organisations by DECC and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in September 2009. This guidance is available on the Defra website.
DECC is requesting that each local authority publishes its own GHG report locally on its own website, and that as a minimum the standard template in Annex I of the guidance above be used, so that totals in CO2e for Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 are obvious. This is to support the localism agenda by ensuring local authorities are accountable to their local people for their greenhouse gas emissions.
DECC is requesting that each local authority publish its GHG report by the end of July 2011 for 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 data. DECC originally requested that local authorities publish their GHG reports locally by the end of June, however, in response to requests received from local authorities subject to the CRC, this date has been moved to the end of July so this aligns with the CRC data submission.
DECC is planning to collate the total figures for each local authority for their Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 (if reported) emissions in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) covering all greenhouse gas emissions – so the total figures for all LAs are available in one place. DECC also intends to collect a short description of what a local authority has included and excluded in their report, so it is important to make this obvious and transparent. DECC therefore requests that once each local authority has published its local GHG report by the end of July, the following is provided by email to local.carbon@decc.gsi.gov.uk
- a website link (URL) to the GHG report that contains totals for Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions in CO2e
- a contact email address so visitors to the DECC website can easily contact LAs if they choose to enquire further about the figures
- a short description detailing what is within the scope of the report and any specific exclusions. This will be published on the DECC website alongside the data.
DECC has produced a frequently asked questions document to help answer the queries local authorities may have on the process.
Benefits of DECC's request
The benefits of following this guidance are:
- It is aligned with the GHG Protocol – the internationally recognised standard for corporate accounting and reporting on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Other similar recent guidance, such as HM Treasury’s sustainability reporting guidance (June 2010), CIPFA’s sustainability reporting publication (December 2010) and the Carbon Trust Standard also follow the GHG Protocol.
- It recommends a standardised reporting template (see Annex I on pages 59-61 in the guidance).
- It is supported by Defra and DECC – including updates to the greenhouse gas conversion factors and dedicated email support at ghgreporting@defra.gsi.gov.uk
- It is the same guidance other organisations, particularly in the private sector follow, currently on a voluntary basis. This means each local authority’s own estate emissions will be broadly comparable to other organisations in their areas.
- It explains how this reporting of an organisation’s carbon footprint fits with other government policies, such as the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (see Part 1 and Annex C of the guidance). Any changes in government policy affecting the measuring and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions will be incorporated into any updated guidance.
Clarification over definition of ‘local authority’
To clarify what is meant by ‘local authority’, this applies to England only and DECC considers county councils, district councils (in two-tier areas), metropolitan districts, unitary authorities, London boroughs, the City of London and the Isles of Scilly to be captured, i.e. the same coverage as applied to NI185 – a list is available in the baseline statistics spreadsheet below (though recognising boundary changes may affect some authorities’ structures). DECC would recommend to organisations in other local authority categories (i.e. national park authorities, police authorities, etc.) that the guidance proposed in this email is good practice but DECC does not intend to collate the data centrally.
This spreadsheet contains provisional data collected from all local authorities in England under National Indicator 185 (& 194). Please refer to the Statistical Release document and Methodology for further information. DECC are very grateful for local authorities' help in collating this information for the first time. We understand better data is now available for a number of local authorities. These statistics should be considered a guide to emissions from local authorities operations and potential changes are indicated with a star.
Statistical Release
Previous NI 185 guidance documents
This document briefly explains the methodology:
Please note, this is Defra guidance from 2008 and it is available here for completeness.
Previous NI 185 spreadsheet tool (updated June 2010)
This is an error corrected spreadsheet, corrected for the three early spreadsheet errors (information in the note below) and further errors found more recently. Please do not use it to submit 2009/10 data to DECC as announcements have not been made with regards to this.
Advice on submission of the 2008/09 baseline data and how to deal with errors in the spreadsheet was released 10th July 2009:
Please note, this is a DECC tool for NI 185 only, and is not applicable to the new approach announced on 27 January 2011. It is available here for completeness.