If you or your team has been tasked with the significant job of counting carbon emissions for your council, drafting a climate action plan, or updating a previous one, you might be asking ‘where do I begin?’ A good place to start is Sustainability Victoria’s handy guide: Organisational Carbon Accounting for Local Governments Learner Guide.
Local governments can expect continued and evolving changes to climate policy in the years ahead, as the understanding of the urgency of climate change deepens, and the need for comprehensive and effective measures becomes more evident. These changes will likely only increase the need for local governments to report their emissions using robust carbon accounting principles accurately.
Updated in October 2023 to reflect the current carbon accounting landscape, Sustainability Victoria’s Organisational Carbon Accounting for Local Governments Learner Guide ensures that local government staff have the information they need for best practice Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions reporting.
One stop shop for climate action planning
The Organisational Carbon Accounting for Local Governments Learner Guide (Learner Guide) is comprehensive – while it might seem long, the level of detail and information will likely provide everything council employees need to upskill in this important field. The Learner Guide includes background and links to enable staff to clarify contentious sources, understand emission reporting boundaries, and get up and running with the task of developing a climate action plan.
Kate Noble, Manager of SV Lab, Sustainability Victoria’s innovation think tank, said, “The response received from users of the previous Learner Guide was overwhelmingly positive, so we have recently refreshed it to keep it up-to- date. This 2023 edition of the Learner Guide includes access to the popular webinars and supplementary materials from the 2018 version as well.”
The Learner Guide objectives are to:
- Provide specialised and relevant information to local government staff that aligns with relevant legislation and recognised standards regarding the preparation of GHG inventories related to councils’ operations
- Provide local government staff with the knowledge required to develop an operational GHG inventory and use the outcomes for management purposes, including:
- Measurement and monitoring of GHG emissions and energy use for all activities of the organisation
- GHG reporting to assist councils in developing and executing an emissions reduction strategy
In addition, the Learner Guide provides information on the following aspects of organisational carbon accounting:
- Determining emissions reporting boundaries, including the organisational boundary (operations to be included in the inventory) and the operational boundary (sources of emissions to be included in the inventory)
- Understanding and applying the concepts of relevance (in particular, as they relate to Scope 3 emissions sources) and materiality
- Calculating the carbon inventory, including data collection and collation and relevant sources of emissions factors
- Documenting the carbon inventory results in a way that is easily replicated and maintained, and that enables local governments to maintain their emissions inventories and track their progress year-on-year
- Understanding the mechanics and options for setting targets, using inventories as a basis for visualising level of effort and ambition
- Understanding how carbon inventories can be used to inform strategic planning and investment in energy management opportunities
It is important to note that this Guide does not provide examples of community-scale GHG inventory development; however, the same carbon accounting principles can be applied to local business or community GHG inventory development.
Demystifying carbon accounting
There’s no denying that understanding the nuances of different types of emissions and how they are accounted for can be challenging. The Learner Guide explores many of these topics, demystifying and decoding them for councils. Some of the focus areas for the updated guide include:
Increasing focus on reporting and managing scope 3 emissions
Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) standards and broader stakeholder concerns have highlighted the importance of including Scope 3 emissions in organisational GHG inventories and reduction targets. Organisations are increasingly expected to manage their indirect emissions through a range of levers to manage risk, reduce costs, and ensure they are doing their part to decarbonise this diffuse, complex and shared source of emissions.
Development of different approaches to calculate scope 2 emissions
Measurement and reporting of emissions from electricity consumption have matured in recent years, and standards now require reporting using both a ‘market-based’ and ‘location-based’ approach. A market-based approach allows organisations to capture the emissions reductions from purchases of offsite renewables. At the same time, location- based reporting focuses on total electricity consumption (and thus ongoing efficiency measures) while capturing the effects of grid decarbonisation over time.
Increasing focus on accurate and complete emissions reporting according to a data hierarchy GHG reporting is a process of continual improvement. With most organisations now being several years into emissions reporting, methods and disclosures have evolved and improved and a higher standard of data accuracy, completeness and granularity is now expected.
Increasing focus on deployment (reducing emissions)
With most organisations now having established emissions baselines, there is a much greater focus on reducing emissions against a science-aligned target – and demonstrating progress via deliberate actions.
Updates to legislation
Climate policy and legislation in Australia is evolving in step with these developments at the Federal and State levels. Since the last Learner Guide was published, the Australian Government has updated Australia’s GHG emission reduction targets of 43 per cent by 2030 (from a 2005 baseline) and net zero by 2050.
Victoria’s emissions reduction targets are even more ambitious – they were updated last year to 75-80 per cent below 2005 levels by 2035, on track to net-zero emissions by 2045.
Additionally, Commonwealth legislation for mandatory climate reporting passed in March, with requirements to commence in 2025. The legislation covers listed and unlisted companies, NGER reporters and financial institutions, registrable superannuation entities, and registered investment schemes. You may have businesses in your local government area who are impacted by these new requirements.
Supporting your community to reduce emissions
According to Ms Noble, while all the examples in the Learner Guide are tailored to local government agencies, the carbon accounting principles can be applied to developing any organisational GHG inventories. “This means it will provide you with the knowledge to support businesses and community groups in your local government area – and it can even be a resource for them to develop their own inventory,” said Ms Noble.
The Learner Guide also contains information that will raise awareness amongst local stakeholders around the impact of emissions on their activities and the role they can play in reducing emissions and mitigating climate change, helping to foster a sense of responsibility and ambition across Victoria.
“We’ve done the hard yards, so you don’t have to – and the Learner Guide is available for everyone to use,” said Ms Noble.
“Sharing the Learner Guide across the private and public sectors will facilitate collaboration between local government, businesses, and the community, leading to innovative solutions for reducing emissions and promoting sustainable development.
“Emission reduction measures often unlock a whole range of co-benefits across all sectors of the community, including improvements in health, comfort and cost of living. These benefits help to strengthen regional economies and communities, building resilience to future climate impacts and economic shocks.”
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