Environmental reporting tools
How will you start your environmental reporting journey?
Culture for Climate Scotland has a number of tools and resources to help you measure, monitor and reduce your carbon emissions.
Carbon emissions reduction planning
We have four spreadsheet-based tools to allow you to integrate your emissions recording and planning work. These tools are for your internal use only and will not be used for submitting carbon management plans or reports on emissions to funders.
All our tools are based on the most up-to-date carbon emissions conversion factors as provided by the UK Government (BEIS) in 2024. They provide you with a carbon footprint output unit of kgCO2e (all greenhouse gases calculated as carbon dioxide equivalent), so are in line with all UK planning and reporting requirements.
1. Carbon management planning tool
The carbon management planning tool allows you to integrate your existing recording with new planning work to help you identify and assess reduction projects, while keeping track of your emissions.
2. Quick carbon calculator
The quick carbon calculator (opens an Excel spreadsheet) allows you to quickly calculate the emissions of specific actions to reduce your consumption of energy, travel, waste and water. It can help you decide on the lowest carbon action to take or measure a snapshot of your existing practice. It also includes a guide to typical equipment usage.
3. Emission reduction plan summary tool
The emission reduction plan summary tool can be used to collate costs and emissions savings resulting from emission reduction projects.
4. Carbon budgeting tool
The carbon budgeting tool (opens an Excel spreadsheet) enables you to use your organisation’s current carbon footprint and net-zero target to forecast and budget your carbon emissions in line with your net-zero trajectory.
Please note this is an advanced tool and should only be used once you have calculated your/your organisation’s carbon footprint, understood all your sources of emissions, and set a net-zero target year.
We have complete guidance on how to use this tool. If you prefer, you can watch a video on how to use the tool.
For reporting organisations, these tools can be used to discuss and explain the impacts of your plan with your green teams, to ensure board approval and to work with your lead officer when implementing your carbon management plan as part of your funding conditions.
Additional emission calculators
Estimate your commuting emissions
Use our commuting tool (opens an Excel spreadsheet) to estimate your organisation’s emissions from commuting. The tool allows you to either input data manually or use a pre-built survey to collect the data.
Depending on the size of your workforce, staff location and how often staff work on premises, commuting can represent a significant proportion of your emissions. Understanding the size of these emissions can help inform your sustainability policies.
Emissions from commuting are classed as Scope 3 emissions under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Visit the Carbon Trust website if you would like to understand more about emissions classification.
Estimate your office energy
Use our tenant energy toolbox (opens an Excel spreadsheet) to help calculate estimates of both your office space’s energy consumption and those produced by staff members working from home.
For anyone who rents a studio or office space where heat, light and power are included in the rent, this spreadsheet tool provides a way of calculating an estimate of the carbon footprint of their accommodation. By supplying just the floor area of your office and the number of people working in your organisation, you can use the tool to provide information for your annual reporting or for your employees and audiences. You can also use it for a more in-depth analysis to help you recognise your best energy saving opportunities.
We updated the toolbox in February 2021 to include a ‘working from home’ tab for organisations who are switching to a home working model for a significant part of their operations. Please refer to our guide to measuring impact on emissions from home working to determine whether your organisation needs to use this and to find generic figures if you’re just working from home for a short time.
Note: We always recommend asking your landlord for information on fuel bills if available.
Record your travel emissions
Measuring travel is one of the biggest challenges facing artists and cultural organisations when it comes to better understanding their environmental impact. For organisations, this is often due to large quantities of data coming from multiple sources. Travel is often the largest source of emissions for individuals and organisations, so we thought it was important to find a way of making measuring travel an easier process for individuals and organisations.
Claim Expenses is an indispensible online tool that we commissioned to help arts organisations simplify their travel recording.
Contact us
We are always pleased to hear from people using our tools. If you have any questions or problems, please contact [email protected].