Developed by Local Partnerships, working with the Local Government Association (LGA), the Greenhouse Gas Accounting Tool aims to provide a “straightforward and consistent” approach for councils seeking to calculate their carbon baseline.
Local Partnerships says consistent and convenient calculation of an annual carbon baseline is an important part of managing the carbon in local authorities.
The tool, which is free to use for all councils in England and Wales, produces summary tables and charts to help local authorities understand their most significant sources of emissions, which can then be used to prioritise actions to reduce carbon emissions.
Councils are also able to benchmark their emissions with other councils to understand how their performance compares with their peers.
Local Partnerships says the tool has been reviewed by the Carbon Disclosure Project for compliance, and can be used to disclose council emissions data to the CDP-ICLEI Unified Reporting System in the Local Government Emissions section.
As of 17 January 2023, featured alongside the tool is a Waste Emissions Calculator that has been developed by Cambridgeshire County Council and University College London (UCL). Local Partnerships says this has been developed through the Net Zero Innovation Programme, which is a collaboration between the LGA and UCL.