Carbon Management Plan template
Who is this document for?
This carbon management plan (CMP) template and guidance is to help smaller and less complex public bodies that may have limited capacity to measure, monitor and report on their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and that have relatively simple corporate emissions inventories and influence over these emissions. It is designed to ensure all public bodies tackle the essential emissions relating to their operations, and to highlight the importance of focusing on the use of public body functions to influence change more widely.
The template has been designed to align with the mandatory public bodies climate change duties (PBCCD) reporting. It may be appropriate for bodies that are not classed as ‘major players’, and are not subject to the reporting duty, to simplify the template to reflect their more limited emissions and influence. For example, it may be appropriate for such bodies to focus on scope 1 and 2 emissions initially.
In all cases, public bodies should use the template as a starting point and develop it to reflect their own needs and circumstances.
Throughout, the term ‘carbon’ is used for ease, as other greenhouse gases are typically reported in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Why have a Carbon Management Plan?
A CMP serves as a strategic and action-oriented document to help public bodies understand, measure, manage and reduce their corporate greenhouse gas emissions.
What are the key parts of a Carbon Management Plan?
As outlined in this guidance and template, the key parts of a Carbon Management Plan are:
- overview of the organisation: its size, key activities and functions
- governance and management arrangements, including how the CMP fits into corporate management and governance structures and processes. This section should also include a signed declaration verifying that the CMP information is accurate and formally signed off by an appropriate senior manager. It should also note how often the CMP will be reviewed
- identification of key stakeholders and partners
- key drivers and objectives of the CMP, including reference to key policy and organisational priorities
- baseline year for the CMP, from which emission reductions will be monitored
- clear boundaries of which emission sources (relating to organisational functions) will be included in the CMP, and any exclusions
- collating an emissions inventory based on the emission sources within the agreed boundary
- emissions reduction targets, overall and activity specific
- a register of emission reduction projects
- a visualisation of the decarbonisation pathway
- monitoring and reporting the impact of the emissions reduction projects and setting out the expected impact of projects in the years ahead
- Publishing annual reports on progress.
Statutory public bodies climate change duties reporting
Many sections of this Carbon Management Plan correspond to the public bodies climate change duties reporting (PBCCD report) template as defined in Schedule 2 of The Climate Change (Duties of Public Bodies: Reporting Requirements) (Scotland) Order 2015, as amended. This guidance indicates where the Carbon Management Plan relates to the PBCCD report template, using the relevant Part and table or question numbers.
Please refer also to the public bodies climate change duties reporting guidance on how to fill out the annual report which can be found at here on the SSN website.