Comment by Stephanie Parker, Senior Advisor Decarbonisation – Complex Sites at Energy Systems Catapult.

The government’s latest annual State of the Estate Report showed that direct emissions from public sector buildings have fallen by 10% and reduced energy use has meant that the government has spent £122 million less in 2021-22 compared with 2017-18.

It’s welcome news and demonstrates in real terms what can be done with a huge effort from government teams. That’s a whopping £122m that can be redirected into public services – more school computers, hospital equipment or further investment in decarbonisation.

The numbers indicate that the government is on course to deliver its ambition to create a smaller, better, and greener estate and meet its target of halving public sector carbon emissions by 2032, with a 75% reduction by 2037.

A huge research and innovation effort across government and industry has led to this point – no surprises that decarbonisation across the public estate is a knotty issue, with a truly collaborative effort needed to untangle the challenges.

One such effort has been the award-winning Modern Energy Partners (MEP) programme, a ground-breaking partnership across government, the NHS and Energy Systems Catapult. The team worked on the ground with 42 public sector sites and industry collaborators to discover the best ways to decarbonise these complex estates.

The learning from MEP has been instrumental in the development of the new Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance (PSDG), launched by Energy Systems Catapult in March 2023. PSDG captures the real-world learnings from MEP in an ultimate public sector decarbonisation toolkit to make energy savings simpler and enable decarbonisation at scale and pace.

The premise is simple: equip more public sector organisations with practical tools, templates, guides and a framework to reduce emissions across their buildings, helping save energy, money and scale progress, saving more taxpayer millions.

The MEP programme has recently been given its own ‘State of’ style evaluation.

Spoiler: it was a very good thing!

We’ve outlined five of the key takeaways from the evaluation that will help ensure your success, as well as signposting the practical tools and guides from the PSDG that can help.

1. Independent expertise – With so many factors to consider, and potential choices to be made when decarbonising buildings and estates, it’s important to have a team that can provide a range of perspectives and ensure the best outcome for your site and the people that work there. The value of the MEP ‘concept designs’ that set out how to decarbonise the particular site, came from their independent nature and the high levels of expertise from the MEP team and the consultants involved. The PSDG can help you replicate this by giving you the 101 on independent expertise, feasibility and design studies, and cross-consultancy collaboration.

Get better decarb plans – With the PSDG’s Theme 2 Guide – Feasibility and Design.

2. Engagement – Getting the team on the site deeply involved in decarbonisation projects is critical. The MEP programme found there were delays in information sharing with sites, and concept designs sometimes weren’t quite right because the people who knew the site best, and understood how it was used every day, weren’t properly engaged. To avoid these issues, make sure you engage all the relevant people and provide them with the necessary information.

Avoid stakeholder pitfalls – Download the PSDG’s Stakeholder Engagement Guide from the page here.

3. Funding – Funding was identified as a key barrier to implementing measures. The more informed you are about funding options, the better prepared you’ll be with a winning business case, and the better your chances of securing the resources you need to make your decarbonisation programme a success.

Secure your funding – Get the PSDG’s Funding Guide on the page here. If you are a local authority, Net Zero Go can also help you with appropriate business cases.

4. In-house skills and capabilities – Skills gaps were identified, particularly around collecting data at a site level and expertise on how to procure and maintain low carbon heating systems. The PSDG’s skills and capabilities guide can help you identify the expertise you need across your whole decarbonisation programme. And don’t forget about the importance of procurement! Ensuring you have a viable procurement route in place for the solution you wish to deliver is critical to achieving your decarbonisation goals.

Need support and friction-free procurement? – See the Skills and Capabilities Guide and the Theme 3 Guide – Procurement, available on the page here.

5. Sub-metering – Few sites had sufficient sub metering, so they didn’t understand enough about their estates and how they use energy day to day and during the different seasons. It’s critical you understand your energy data, and if you are a larger site have a strategy to manage your data and its analysis; it’s the foundation of your decarbonisation programme.

Demystify your data – Check out the PSDG’s guide to Understanding Energy Data.

By making energy savings simpler across public buildings, and turbocharging decarbonisation, we’re supporting the public sector to make its vital contribution to delivering Net Zero by 2050, and improving lives now and for future generations.

You can check out the full suite of tools, guides and decarbonisation framework here at the Public Sector Decarbonisation Guidance homepage.

For more information, get in touch: psdecarbguidance@es.catapult.org.uk