All Public Sector Decarbonisation Guides

Access the guidance for all seven themes to decarbonise your public sector buildings and sites

Public Sector Decarbonisation: All Guides

Who should use this guidance?

This Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance was commissioned by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) 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 Modern Energy Partners (MEP) programme and expertise from across Energy Systems Catapult to provide guidance on heat decarbonisation and energy management.

MEP was a £12.4m collaborative, cross-departmental innovation programme led by Energy Systems Catapult and funded 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.

The MEP programme focused on learning-by-doing, carrying out specific activities and generating consistent repeatable approaches for scalable delivery of decarbonisation, taking into account whole system thinking on high energy using campus-style sites.

Developing your strategy: Main Guide

This guide supports you to develop your decarbonisation strategy and programme with the aim of reducing energy demand and eliminating fossil fuels across your estate.

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Developing your Strategy: Extra Guides

Develop a data-led organisational strategy to decarbonise your public sector buildings and sites

Discover eight available guides

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What could decarbonisation look like for you?
Understanding your energy data
Stakeholder engagement and communications guide
Skills and capabilities guide
Understanding your timelines guide
Guidance for the estimator tools
Supporting local authority senior leaders to tackle the climate emergency
Greenhouse gas reporting guide

What could decarbonisation look like for you?

This guide provides insight into what an overall decarbonisation solution could look like – including various examples of technology and how they can work together.

Understanding your energy data

This short guide helps you to understand your energy data better and how it can inform your strategy and programme development.

Stakeholder engagement and communications guide

This guide helps you think about your stakeholder engagement and communications plans and how these are critical to the success of your programme.

Skills and capabilities guide

This guide covers the skills and capabilities, including referral links to other Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance, that might be required for each of the activities you and your team need to undertake to deliver a decarbonisation programme.

Understanding your timelines guide

It can typically take over two years to complete the delivery of decarbonisation projects. This guidance helps you consider what needs to be included in your plan, considering both the strategic high level and the low level project activity required to decarbonise.

Guidance for the estimator tools

This document is the user guide for the business as usual estimator, the decarbonisation intervention estimator and the high-level decarbonisation intervention estimator.

High-level decarbonisation intervention estimator user guide

This document is the user guide for the High-level decarbonisation intervention estimator.

Supporting local authority senior leaders to tackle the climate emergency

This publication is designed to inform and inspire local authority senior leadership to close the gap between climate ambition and action. It includes the actions senior leaders should take, and signposts the available support.

Greenhouse gas reporting guide

This guide covers the basics for greenhouse gas emissions monitoring and reporting. It details the different routes you might use to voluntarily, and the associated benefits, as well as mandatory disclosures for public sector organisations.

Feasibility and Design: Main Guide

As part of your strategy development, you should have a clear picture of your estate, emissions and the prioritised projects you wish to take forward. This guide covers undertaking feasibility and design studies, including information on the different types of studies and how to ensure they support your funding applications and ultimately reduce CO2 emissions.

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Feasibility & Design: Extra Guides

Develop detailed feasibility studies for investible decarbonisation measures, for example low carbon heating, aligned to your overall strategy

Discover seven available guides

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Understanding six activities that make up feasibility and design
Local Distribution Network Operator (DNO) capacity guidance
Decarbonisation Pathway Report
Site survey and building audits guide
Site energy demand estimator guide
How to treat technologies and what to ask for
Heat networks guide

COMING SOON

Energy flexibility and storage guide

Understanding six activities that make up feasibility and design

This guide expands on the main theme 2 guide, providing more information on six activities you might undertake as part of your work on feasibility and design. The guide covers what the 6 activities are, how to differentiate and choose between them, and how they fit in with the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) plan of work.

Local Distribution Network Operator (DNO) capacity guidance

A guide on how to establish, at a high level, what the local Distribution Network Operator (DNO) electricity capacity is for a site.

Decarbonisation Pathway Report

An example of the output of decarbonisation planning activity, providing a carbon reduction pathway for a site using visual and quantitative information to enable decarbonisation planning and detailed design activity, allowing carbon neutrality by 2050.

Site survey and building audits guide

This guide provides a description of how to carry out a site survey along with a helpful checklist.

Site energy demand estimator guide

This document is the user guide for the ‘site energy demand estimator’.

How to treat technologies and what to ask for

This guidance will help you understand the technology options available for site decarbonisation. It provides background information, insights, actions, and considerations when undertaking feasibility studies for technology integration.

COMING SOON: Heat networks guide

This guide has been designed to support non-domestic organisations, that are looking to connect to district heat networks, navigate the new heat zoning regulations. The guide covers what a heat network will look like at a high-level, the process for assessing the technical and economic feasibility of connecting to a scheme, stakeholder engagement and how to optimise commercial contracts.

COMING SOON: Energy flexibility and storage guide

This guide introduces various storage technology options, their applications, and business models. It will also explore methods for deploying flexibility and provide insights on how public sector organizations can evaluate and determine the most suitable options for their specific needs.

Procurement: Main Guide

This guide aims to help you navigate your net zero procurement processes with your procurement team. It covers the basics of public sector procurement, why it is important to make the right procurement decisions, and helps you to understand the routes available.

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Procurement: Extra Guides

Identifying the right procurement and contracting approaches, and working effectively with your procurement team is vital to delivering the projects in your decarbonisation strategy

Discover three available guides

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Procurement routes and frameworks list
The role of facilities management in decarbonisation
Power Purchase Agreement guide

Procurement routes and frameworks list

This guidance aims to provide you with examples of public procurement frameworks that are available for you to use as part of your procurement process.

The role of facilities management in decarbonisation

This guide helps you understand the role your facilities management provider may play in decarbonisation and how to get the best out of them in both the early stages of the tender process and during your contract.

Power Purchase Agreement guide

This guide sets out benefits and risks of the different PPA models for offtakers and generators. It also gives an overview of the procurement process and stakeholder engagement to help optimise your contract terms.

Funding: Main Guide

This guide provides information on how you might generate estimates for your decarbonisation programme and identify available funding sources such as the Low Carbon Skills Fund and the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. Information on how to secure sign off for your projects is also included.

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Funding: Extra Guides

Securing funding sources and agreement on what to spend are key enablers to delivering your decarbonisation strategy

Discover three available guides

AVAILABLE

Decarbonisation grants and funding sources table
What do the numbers mean?
Business case checklist

Decarbonisation grants and funding sources table

This document provides information on the main public sector decarbonisation grant and funding schemes, with links to where you can find guidance and apply.

What do the numbers mean?

This guide provides a breakdown of the typical types of numbers that are considered best practice to generate as part of your decarbonisation programme and an easy guide on how to interpret them. This will help with getting business cases signed off and applying for Salix Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) funding.

Business case checklist

This checklist covers the areas you’ll likely need to cover when pulling a business case together under the Five Case Methodology and securing the required permissions/internal signoff to progress the project.

Installation: Main Guide

This guide covers the areas you need to think about when project managing the installation of decarbonisation measures on site. It covers the skills you might need, roles and responsibilities and managing risks.

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Commissioning and Handover: Main Guide

This guide helps you achieve the best outcomes when commissioning equipment and achieve a high quality handover, giving you the best chance of maximising the benefits of your decarbonisation project.

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Monitoring and Evaluation: Main Guide

This guide covers information on metering, how to collect your energy data and how to make best use of it. Collecting high quality data is helpful for developing your strategy, monitoring energy use and verifying your energy and carbon savings.

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