Question reference: S6W-20685
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 28 August 2023
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Current status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 26 September 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what information it holds on the total number of public sector buildings and their carbon footprints, broken down by public body responsible for managing the buildings.
Answer
The Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings Strategy, published in October 2021, uses an estimate from the Electronic Property Information Mapping Service (e-PIMS) of 23,000 public sector buildings in Scotland.
Since 2015-16, around 180 public bodies have been under a legal requirement to report annually on compliance with their climate change duties. Individual reports are published on the Sustainable Scotland Network (SSN) website.
The Public Bodies Climate Change Reporting 2021-22 Analysis Report , prepared by SSN with grant support from the Scottish Government, shows total scope 1 and scope 2 emissions were 30.2% lower in 2021-22 compared to 2015-16. In 2021-22, scope 1 emissions were 1,197,089 tCO2e (tonnes of CO2 equivalent) and scope 2 emissions were 567,734 tCO2e. Scope 1 are direct emissions typically from heating of buildings and the use of fleet vehicles, with refrigerants with some other emissions associated with sector specific processes also included. Scope 2 are indirect emissions from grid electricity consumption.
The annual Analysis Report provides some sectoral breakdown of reported information. The Scottish Government does not routinely hold information from individual reporting bodies as the reports are publicly available.