Carbon reporting methodology

Find out more about our methodology for reporting carbon emissions.

The sustainability team has led the council’s efforts to establish its scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions baseline through improved data monitoring, embracing new data collection techniques, and investment in new data management solutions.

We collect activity data from various teams across the council and use the Greenhouse Gas Protocol methodology alongside annualised Department for Energy Security and Net Zero conversion factors to calculate emissions.

Since our original baseline was defined in 2019, the council has added several new emissions categories to better reflect activities within its sphere of influence. This new baseline is reflected in emissions reporting from 2023/24 onwards. We measure, tracks and reports emissions data for the following:

corporate estate
education estate - maintained schools only starting in 2023/24
streetlighting
corporate and fire fleet
grey mileage
business travel and hotel stays
employee commuting and working from home - starting in 2023/24
office waste - starting in 2023/24