Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance

Accelerating carbon emissions reduction across public sector buildings, sites and estates… with simplicity, speed and scale

Who should use this guidance?

This Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance was commissioned by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), formerly the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and the Government Property Function to help public sector bodies and their decarbonisation partners understand the best route to Net Zero. We aim to help deliver decarbonisation projects at scale, as well as support grant funding applications, to enable rapid progress on reducing carbon emissions.

This guidance takes learnings from the award-winning Modern Energy Partners (MEP) programme and expertise from across Energy Systems Catapult to provide guidance on heat decarbonisation and energy management.

MEP was a £12.4 million collaborative, cross-departmental innovation programme led by Energy Systems Catapult and funded through BEIS’s Energy Innovation Portfolio. The programme was overseen by BEIS and the Cabinet Office, with additional match funding from the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence, and NHS pathfinder sites.

Focusing on learning-by-doing, MEP carried out specific activities to generate consistent, repeatable approaches for scalable delivery of decarbonisation, taking into account whole system thinking on high energy using campus-style sites.

What is the challenge for the UK Public Sector to reach Net Zero?

With more than 300,000 individual properties, at a combined value of £515 billion, the UK public sector manages, by some distance, the largest property portfolio in the country. The Central Government estate alone has an estimated value of £157.6 billion, with an annual running cost of £21.7 billion. Public sector buildings are responsible for around 2% of the total UK greenhouse gas emissions.

While the UK government has made good progress in decarbonising its operations – reducing emissions by 57% by 2020-2021 compared to 2009-2010, and with an estimated 38% of this reduction due to improved management of the estate – there is still more to be done.

The Greening Government Commitments set out the actions UK government departments and their partner organisations will take to reduce their impacts on the environment in the period 2021 to 2025. The Greening Government Commitments set individual departmental emissions reduction targets, driving action and helping the UK government meet its overall Net Zero target.

Seven Themes to Decarbonise the Public Sector

1. Developing your Strategy

Guidance and tools to help you to develop a data-led organisational strategy to decarbonise your public sector buildings, including heating. The guidance will help you set up your organisation for success, secure “buy-in” for your strategy, think about greenhouse gas reporting, and give you an overview of the following six steps. The guidance complements the Net Zero Estate Playbook – developed by the Office of Government Property with support from Energy Systems Catapult.

2. Design and Feasibility

Develop detailed feasibility studies for one or a suite of investible decarbonisation measures, for example low-carbon heating, aligned to your decarbonisation strategy. This guidance and tools will enable you to prioritise areas for delivery, to know what to ask for, and help you appraise technical options for delivering your desired outcomes.

Did you know? The average time it took to develop a feasibility study during MEP was three months.

3. Procurement

Identifying the right procurement and contracting approaches, and working effectively with your procurement team is vital to delivering the projects in your decarbonisation strategy. These tools and guidance will help you identify relevant procurement frameworks, write high quality tenders, and evaluate the responses.

Did you know? The public sector procures 30,000 LED bulbs each year.

4. Funding

Securing funding sources and agreement on what to spend are key enablers to delivering your decarbonisation strategy. Our guidance and tools will help you to work out what your projects will cost, and to apply for available grants for the public sector, including applying to DESNZ’s delivery body Salix Finance for grants from the Low Carbon Skills Fund and/or the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.

5. Installation

This guidance will help you to project manage the installation of decarbonisation and energy efficiency measures and effectively manage your decarbonisation partners. We cover how to effectively manage risks and issues that may arise, monitor progress against a programme of works, and implement quality assurance processes.

6. Commissioning and Handover

Maximising the benefits delivered from a completed project is supported with guidance about the handing-over process, the commissioning and correct set-up of equipment, and staff training.

7. Monitoring and Evaluation

This guidance helps ensures that the benefits of energy efficiency measures and decarbonisation are delivered through metering and analysis.