Chamber and committees

The biggest opportunity for joint work is with the other three nations in the UK. Our improvement plan and the ESS report’s recommendation has prompted things to move a little bit faster in Scotland than in those other countries, but it is coming down the line there, too. The UK has no mandatory requirement for local authorities to report on their greenhouse gas emissions, and the Welsh Government, which does not have one either, is running into the same difficulties that we are. I have quite substantive discussions with my Northern Irish and Welsh counterparts on our net zero ambitions and what we can do in the devolved space to accelerate action around them. We also meet regularly on the issue with the UK Government, so that joint work will be factored in.

We would like to share with other countries the work that the focus group is doing and our wider research. We should also keep a keen eye on what happens in the EU, because this is an issue for every country that wants to accelerate its emissions reduction, and the issue of scope 3 emissions is becoming more of a discussion point in that regard. The methodology around that needs to be bottomed out so that it is fair and will work.

We will continue pressing ahead with the work that we are doing but, at the same time, we will keep an eye on what is happening in the European space and, I hope, we will influence what happens in the wider UK space, too.

As you have heard, I cannot quantify what resource is required. It might be that, after we have done all the necessary work, I will go back and say that councils will require more resource to enable them to do the necessary work, but, for this budget, that piece of string has not been bottomed out yet, as it were.

A few local authorities are already reporting voluntarily. One council—I think that it was East Renfrewshire Council—did a piece of work that involved publishing the emissions data for its supply chains, but it found it difficult to report accurately on that and on how it would impact on decision making.

We must remember—I cannot believe that I am telling this to a former councillor—how varied and broad the services that a local authority procures are and the number of organisations of different sizes that bid for contracts to supply goods and services. Therefore, it could be difficult to ascertain what the scope 3 emissions are, for the reasons that we have all talked about. Some organisations are larger than others, and some have the data while others do not. There is also the issue of whether the data can be relied on.

I come back to what I said at the beginning: ESS has published its report, the conversation is under way, the improvement plan is in place and the Scottish Government is working with COSLA. We have held a few workshops with local authorities and have started to talk about the implications for their activities in identifying scope 3 emissions. Things will have come out of that process that will have prompted action in some areas.

Members of your previous panel mentioned the conversations that have been had with suppliers. For the larger suppliers, that data might be readily available or they might say, “We are moving in this direction in order to reduce our emissions. Can we give you some information on that?”

When it comes to voluntary reporting, will local authorities spend time on that? I think that they will make a judgment about whether that is the best use of their time. Before we put mandatory reporting in place, we need to bottom out a methodology that local authorities are comfortable with.

I do not have that information here. I do not think any have reported on that.

They are not compelled to do it at the moment.

Yes. Also, we have the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service working with them on their emissions reductions and the data for the things that we ask them to do.

In the intervening period, they are working with local authorities and providing them with the methodology for all the other things that they will have to do to reduce emissions in the short and medium term.

With the scope 3 emissions, the situation, as you heard from the previous panel, is so much more complex. How far down the supply chain do you go, and what will the consequences be? I was watching the previous panel of witnesses in my office, and I disagreed with nothing that they were saying. That is why the methodology has to be bottomed out, and it is going to be a substantial piece of work.

I think that the climate change plans that the local authorities put in place and the work that they do with the Improvement Service to drive action will be far more important than reporting on the difficult stuff.

We could say, “We want you to report on the really difficult stuff,” without any methodology having been worked through, but I do not see what the gain would be. If authorities are doing well in reporting on quite a lot of the categories, we can assist them and look at the methodology to improve that reporting, and they can look at the actions that they are taking and can include those in a climate change plan.

As I said in my opening statement, local authorities play a massively important role in reducing emissions. That work also offers them an opportunity. I am most interested in the action that they will take, and I think that that is what wider society is most interested in. I do not think that people in wider society will think, “Hang on a second. They are only giving us figures for some of the easier-to-measure scope 3 reporting. We must compel them to report on all the different categories.” That might be quite difficult, and we do not know what it would yield. We must be proportionate in our approach, which is why we did not automatically agree with the recommendation in question. We need to do further work in this area.

I outlined, when I had my list in front of me, the various categories on which there had been some reporting, including employee commuting and business travel.

If we introduce legislation as a result of how the improvement plan has landed and the discussions that your committee is having with the stakeholders and so on, the reporting to mandate group 1 categories would start in 2025. However, obviously, a lot more work is going on in relation to the other groups as well. As I say, a lot of that will be as a result of the work that the focus groups are doing and the wider research that has been done, as well as discussions with the local authorities about what they can do, what they might feasibly be able to do and, importantly, what action that could drive.