Climate change duties - draft statutory guidance for public bodies: consultation

Closes 23 May 2025

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The first duty: reducing emissions (climate change mitigation)

Chapter 5, Implementing the first duty: reducing emissions, lays out the overarching principles and actions that all public bodies would be expected to undertake, in a manner proportionate to their size and nature, to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, i.e. to develop and implement appropriate emission reductions policies, strategies, route maps, plans and supporting action plans.

The chapter starts with a summary of key actions and outcomes, copied in the drop down section below, before going on to provide detailed guidance around the activities.

Annex A contains a template Carbon Management Plan and associated guidance. This is aimed at smaller and less complex public bodies, who may lack the capacity, skills or resource to develop their own carbon management plan. It is intended as a starting point, with bodies adapting it to suit their own organisation and circumstances.

Annex B contains a template Climate Change Plan for local authorities. It is intended to help local authorities demonstrate their compliance with the three climate change duties, across their corporate and area wide boundaries. Further information is provided in the drop down sections below.

You may find it useful to refer to the consultation paper while responding to these questions.

Reducing emissions – summary of key actions and outcomes

The first of the climate change duties set out in section 44 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 requires public bodies, in exercising their functions, to act in the way best calculated to contribute to the delivery of national emissions reduction targets, i.e. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, also known as climate change mitigation. In the context of the duties, 'targets' means both the five-yearly carbon budgets and the final 2045 target. 

To help demonstrate compliance with this duty, public bodies should:

  • develop a climate change strategy that includes net zero and other relevant targets and has regard to just transition principles
  • develop and implement a carbon management plan or equivalent
  • develop action plans to deliver key elements of the carbon management plan, detailing interim steps, costs, timescales and dependencies
  • set up a process of monitoring and reporting, to report on performance against their targets and action plans
  • ensure that mitigation actions maximise co-benefits, such as improved public health, reduced inequalities and enhanced biodiversity; and minimise unintended consequences such as maladaptation and negative environmental impacts
  • undertake the above giving due consideration to their physical assets including buildings, land and fleet; their staff and service users; the services they deliver; the investments they manage; and the functions they exercise.

Key outcomes will be that public bodies:

  • focus efforts on the material decarbonisation opportunities in each of their areas of wider influence, scopes 1 and 2, and scope 3
  • work with urgency to reduce GHG emissions as quickly as possible in order to get under and stay under 1.5°C aligned decarbonisation pathways, i.e. to go as far as possible as fast as possible, and minimise cumulative emissions
  • put governance processes, systems and senior level accountability in place that ensure policy and project development is aligned to national emissions reduction targets
  • measure, monitor and report on annual progress against their targets and decarbonisation pathway.
5. Do you have any comments about the guidance provided in this chapter on complying with the first duty?
6. Do you think the Carbon Management Plan template is suitable for its intended purpose as outlined above and in Annex A?
7. Do you think the Climate Change Plan template for local authorities is suitable for its intended purpose as outlined in the drop down section below and in Annex B?

Climate Change Plan template for local authorities - more information

Annex B contains a template Climate Change Plan for local authorities.

It is intended to help local authorities demonstrate their compliance with the three climate change duties, across their corporate and area wide boundaries.

The document provides a template of how local authorities should present the action being taken in respect of their climate change duties in the form of Climate Change Plans. The content of the template is not exhaustive, however it does contain the areas local authorities’ Climate Change Plans should cover in order to demonstrate that they are meeting their climate change duties.

Local authorities are free to develop and structure their Climate Change Plan, or equivalent, as best suits their own organisation, for example as a single overarching plan or a series of linked plans covering different areas. The template is intended to provide an overview of what a local authority’s plan or plans should include, as a minimum, to demonstrate how they are acting in the way best calculated to contribute to the national mitigation targets and to help deliver the national adaptation programme, and in the most sustainable way, i.e. how they are meeting the public bodies climate change duties.

What does 'area wide' mean?

‘Area wide’ refers to the totality of activities either planned or currently occurring within a defined geographic area. This aggregates and then breaks down measures, activities and actions at an area wide scale.

Area wide approaches may be taken to both mitigation and to adaptation. It is important to note that the boundaries for these may not be the same. For example, a local authority may take area wide mitigation action where the boundary is the same as the local authority area boundary. However, the boundary for adaptation action may be larger (i.e. regional), or split into smaller areas, for example into river catchment areas.

What are ‘area wide’ or ‘area based’ emissions?

‘Area wide’ or ‘area based’ emissions refers to all emissions allocated to local authority areas, i.e. to the geographical areas. Emissions are grouped by sector into broad source categories including industry, commercial, public sector, domestic, transport, agriculture, waste management and land use, land use change and forestry. Breaking down emissions by source enables the alignment of local area plans, actions and measures for emissions reduction and can be used to develop cost estimates for area wide emissions reduction pathways.