Guidance from Creative Carbon Scotland to Creative Scotland funded organisations
regarding reporting for carbon emissions 2012/13
Creative Carbon Scotland supports Creative Scotland’s decision to introduce carbon
measurement and reporting as the evidence is clear that measuring is the essential first step to
reducing carbon emissions. We have therefore worked with Creative Scotland to develop a
framework to make this reporting as easy as possible, standard across the sector and useful to
organisations in reducing their carbon emissions. Our approach should be compliant with other
organisations seeking information such as local authorities, British and International Standards
etc.
What will happen to this information
Organisations and individuals will report direct to Creative Scotland and their data will be
aggregated to calculate a total of the carbon emissions related to Creative Scotland’s
expenditure, which can be reported to the Scottish Government. Creative Carbon Scotland will
work with Creative Scotland to analyse the information provided to place it in context and ensure
its accuracy and relevance.
However, the data collection is also useful to you as management information. Experience shows
that organisations that measure their carbon start to reduce it, as unnecessary carbon emissions
are related to waste of energy, water, materials or travel, which measurement reveals. The
standardised approach can also help you compare your energy usage etc with similar
organisations which will help identify where extra savings can be made by good practice. As most
carbon emissions are related to energy use, most organisations will save money in the short term
by reducing their carbon emissions.
Targets and metrics
Although there is an overarching aim to reduce carbon emissions, no crude targets are being set
for year on year reductions. The activity of arts organisations is ‘lumpy’ rather than continuous, so
one year’s programme may differ widely from another, with corresponding changes in carbon
emissions. They often work in old and unusual buildings and travel is part of the work. So the first
task is to understand your carbon profile by measuring and reporting. The second task is to
develop intelligent metrics by which we can usefully measure emissions against activity – for
example kg of carbon per seat sold, per performance, per employee, per m 2 of floor space etc.
Different metrics will be relevant to different organisations and the aim will be to find ones that
are useful to you, so you can measure your environmental performance against yourself, not
against irrelevant targets. This will enable you to plan any investment or changes to ways of
working and measure your success. We will work with the sector to help develop metrics.
How to report your carbon emissions
We have helped Creative Scotland design a carbon-reporting pro-forma for its Annual and End of
Project monitoring forms. It asks for data provided by the customised version of the Julie’s
www.creativecarbonscotland.com Tel 07931 553872 Email ben@creativecarbonscotland.com Creative Carbon Scotland is a
SCIO Registered Charity Number SC042687
Creative Carbon Scotland, c/o Festivals Edinburgh, Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street Edinburgh EH8 8BG
Bicycle1 Industry Green (IG) tools, which are available free via Creative Carbon Scotland’s Green
Arts Portal. These are designed for cultural organisations and are widely used in England,
meaning that companies can easily benchmark themselves against similar organisations. If you
already use another carbon calculator, it will very likely require the same data as the IG tools and
although a small amount of data re-entry may be necessary, we feel the benefits will outweigh
the disadvantages. If you do want to use a different approach, please contact us.
The IG tools provide a number of calculators for different areas of work. More than one may
apply to your organisation – maybe the Office tool for your year-round operations and the Tour
tool for each of a number of tours. We have worked with Julie’s Bicycle to ensure that the tools
aggregate the information to make it easy to complete the pro-forma.
Reporting should not be too onerous and should be appropriate to the size of your organisation.
Table 1 below indicates what areas of their operations different arts organisations and individuals
should report on. The draft pro-forma attached shows what information will be asked for. The
categories allow the data you gather through the IG tools to be reported in accordance with the
Government’s reporting recommendations.
The IG tools use official conversion factors to calculate total greenhouse gas emissions from data
such as kWh of electricity or m3 of gas used. The pro-forma asks for the figures in tonnes of
carbon dioxide equivalent (t CO2-e), the standard measure of all greenhouse gases, as well as – if
possible – some of the data from which the t CO2-e figures are calculated. This latter is to provide
you with better management information.
Most of the information is easy to gather. Energy and water totals can be easily calculated from
bills or ideally meter readings, or may be provided by your landlord if you don’t pay the bills.
Simple processes can be established for measuring waste and recycling. To gather data about
travel, which may well be the largest area of emissions and can be quite fiddly, we are developing
a web-based tool that can streamline both expenses claims and carbon calculation. We are
always happy to help and answer any questions. Contact us at ben@creativecarbonscotland.com
or gemma@creativecrbonscotland.com or on 0131 529 7909.
The pro-forma also asks whether you have an environmental sustainability policy and provides an
opportunity to provide details of the moves you are making to improve your environmental
performance. It also asks for the names of any Green Champions you have – we’d encourage you
to appoint some in your organisation as their presence always leads to action.
Training and support
We will be repeating our successful training programme and providing support in the run up to
and during the first year of measurement and reporting. In January - March 2014 we will run
workshops in a number of locations around Scotland to help people get their systems in place for
1
Julie’s Bicycle is the leading authority on environmental sustainability in the arts, culture and creative industries. Creative
Carbon Scotland is working in partnership with JB and has licensed the IG tools and the buildings energy and water
management tool sMeasure for use by Scottish arts organisations free of charge.
www.creativecarbonscotland.com Tel 07931 553872 Email ben@creativecarbonscotland.com Creative Carbon Scotland is a
SCIO Registered Charity Number SC042687
Creative Carbon Scotland, c/o Festivals Edinburgh, Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street Edinburgh EH8 8BG
measuring prior to 1 April 2014 and during the year we will provide workshops and one-to-one
support as required. From April 2015 we will provide additional support during the actual
reporting process.
A pilot group of organisations is already measuring and some are ready to report in 2014. We will
use this experience to improve our systems and make it easier for the next year.
Accuracy
Experience shows that the first year of carbon reporting throws up some questions and
anomalies that are cleared up in later years: Where do the boundaries of a company’s activities
lie? What if most of your income comes from somewhere else? Which areas of travel should be
included? Creative Carbon Scotland will be providing training to Creative Scotland staff to
understand these questions, will advise Creative Scotland on the accuracy and completeness of
the information provided by the sector and will suggest where changes to the process should be
made. We will also report on the progress of the overall project.
Film production
Film production companies, funders and organisations in the UK are growing increasingly
interested in carbon reporting but use different systems to the arts sector. We are working on
developing a system that is compliant with BS8909 which is the British Standard for
environmental sustainability in film production and Creative Scotland will introduce guidelines for
this sector in due course.
www.creativecarbonscotland.com Tel 07931 553872 Email ben@creativecarbonscotland.com Creative Carbon Scotland is a
SCIO Registered Charity Number SC042687
Creative Carbon Scotland, c/o Festivals Edinburgh, Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street Edinburgh EH8 8BG
TABLE 1: Who should report what
Annually or
multi-annually
funded
organisations
Period covered
Annual
by reporting
Activities
All
covered by
reporting
Energy
X
(electricity, gas
etc) and water
used in your
building
Waste sent to
X
landfill or
recycled
Business travel
X
Tour travel and
accommodation
Audience travel
Programme
funded
organisations
Project funded Project
organisations funded
individuals
Annual
Duration of
the project
Funded
activities
Duration of
the project
Funded
activities
x
x
x
X
X
x
x
Optional
Optional
Optional
All
x
Notes
Where only a small part of the activity is
supported by Creative Scotland, please contact us
for clarification.
If you operate from a building managed by
another arts organisation reporting to Creative
Scotland, please indicate this in the appropriate
boxes
X
Includes all travel by staff and volunteers, and
includes travel by artists etc for performances
and events that the organisation has
programmed (ie travel that would not have
happened if they hadn’t programmed the event it
relates to).
Only if appropriate
This is optional but highly recommended. Figures
won’t be included in the organisation’s ‘footprint’
but will be useful for management purposes.
Organisations which present events in others’
venues should work with them to gather data.
www.creativecarbonscotland.com Tel 07931 553872 Email ben@creativecarbonscotland.com Creative Carbon Scotland is a SCIO Registered Charity Number SC042687
Creative Carbon Scotland, c/o Festivals Edinburgh, Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street Edinburgh EH8 8BG
CREATIVE SCOTLAND ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTING PRO-FORMA
Name of Organisation/Individual
Contact person and telephone number for queries
Period of reporting (the financial year 1 April - 31 March or project duration)
Does your organisation manage the building in which you are based?
If the building is managed by another arts organisation, please tell us which one.
Calculate using the Julie's Bicycle IG tools and report below the tonnes of Carbon Dioxide-equivalent (t CO2-e) emitted in relation to
buildings and office management, travel and touring. Where possible, please also record the total KWh of energy and litres of water
consumed and the tonnes of waste produced.
Item
Amount consumed
t CO2-e
Energy (electricity, gas etc) and water used in your building (organisations and individuals receiving project
investment need not record this data)
Electricity from the mains
Renewable electricity generated on-site
Gas/Oil/Other fuels burned on site
Water
Waste (organisations and individuals receiving project investment need not record this data)
Sent to landfill
Sent to recycling/composting
Business travel (all organisations and individuals)
Fuel used in company vehicles (indicate whether petrol, diesel etc)
Travel not in company vehicles
Tour travel and accommodation (all organisations where applicable)
Fuel used in company vehicles (indicate whether petrol, diesel etc)
Travel not in company vehicles
TOTAL
What percentage of your turnover comes from Creative Scotland?
KWh
KWh
KWh
litres
0.00
Amount produced
tonnes
tonnes
t CO2-e
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
litres
litres
0.00
0.00
%
www.creativecarbonscotland.com Tel 07931 553872 Email ben@creativecarbonscotland.com Creative Carbon Scotland is a SCIO Registered Charity Number SC042687
Creative Carbon Scotland, c/o Festivals Edinburgh, Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street Edinburgh EH8 8BG
Percentage of total emissions related to Creative Scotland investment (ie TOTAL x percentage above)
Audience travel (optional but recommended)
Do you have an Environmental Sustainability policy (if so please attach a copy with this report)
Do you have Green Champions in your organisation? If so, please provide their names here:
0.00
0.00
(Yes/No)
Please report in an attached document any measures taken to embed environmental sustainability within core business and
monitoring at Board level
www.creativecarbonscotland.com Tel 07931 553872 Email ben@creativecarbonscotland.com Creative Carbon Scotland is a SCIO Registered Charity Number SC042687
Creative Carbon Scotland, c/o Festivals Edinburgh, Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street Edinburgh EH8 8BG