How to write a Carbon Reduction Plan, step by step

Writing a Carbon Reduction Plan for the first time feels harder than it is. The document itself is short and its structure is fixed by PPN 006, so most of the work is gathering the right data and doing the carbon maths correctly. This guide walks through the process step by step, in the order that actually saves you time, so you are not rewriting sections because a number changed later on.

What you need before you start

You can save yourself a week of back-and-forth by collecting these before you open a blank document:

• The tender documents, so you know which regime applies and the submission deadline.
• Energy bills or meter readings covering your baseline year and current reporting year.
• Fuel records or fuel-card statements for company-owned or leased vehicles.
• Business travel records: expense claims, booking confirmations, grey-fleet mileage claims.
• A rough picture of how staff commute, from a short survey or sensible assumptions.
• Waste quantities from your contractor’s reports or waste transfer notes.
• Delivery and courier records for goods moved in and out.
• A named director willing to review and sign the finished plan.

None of these need to be perfect. Where a record is missing, a documented estimate is acceptable; our guide to Scope 3 for small businesses covers what counts as good enough.

Step 1: Confirm which regime you are writing for

Before you write anything, check which rule the bid falls under. Central-government contracts above 5 million pounds a year, including VAT, sit under PPN 006, while Welsh public-sector bids follow WPPN 006 and its Net Zero by 2030 context. The structure is the same either way, but the declaration wording and references differ, so it is worth settling this at the start rather than reworking the plan afterwards. If you are not sure whether the requirement applies to your bid at all, start with when PPN 006 applies.

Step 2: Choose your baseline year

Your baseline is the reference year every future plan measures progress against, so pick a year you have reasonable data for. A recent, complete year is better than an older one with gaps. Once chosen, you keep using the same baseline in later plans, which is what lets a reader see whether your emissions are genuinely falling over time. If it is your first plan and you have no earlier records, using the current year as both baseline and reporting year is allowed. There is more on the trade-offs in setting a carbon baseline year.

Step 3: Gather your activity data

This is the part that takes the longest, so start it early. You are collecting the raw numbers that emissions are calculated from:

• Gas and other heating fuel use, from your energy bills or meter readings.
• Electricity use in kilowatt hours.
• Fuel for company-owned or leased vehicles, and mileage for staff using their own cars.
• Business travel by air, rail and road.
• Employee commuting patterns.
• Waste sent to landfill, recycling and incineration.
• Transport of goods into and out of the business.

Pull the figures for your baseline year and your current reporting year at the same time, since the plan needs both.

Step 4: Calculate emissions across the three scopes

Now turn that activity data into emissions. Each figure is worked out by multiplying an activity, for example kilowatt hours of electricity, by the current UK Government conversion factor for it, which gives a result in tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Sort the results into Scope 1, 2 and 3, and make sure you are using the current year’s official factors rather than an old set. Using out-of-date factors, or putting purchased electricity in the wrong scope, are the two most common errors at this stage. If you want a quick first estimate before doing the full workings, the carbon footprint calculator gives you a rough total from a handful of inputs.

Step 5: Set your reduction targets

With your totals in hand, decide where you intend to get to and by when. A target can be an absolute cut in tonnes, a percentage reduction against your baseline, or a set of interim milestones on the way to Net Zero by 2050. The policy does not score you on ambition, but the targets have to be real and clearly stated. A simple projection from your baseline to your target year presents this well.

Step 6: Describe your carbon reduction projects

List the measures you have already completed and the ones you have planned: a renewable electricity tariff, replacing gas heating, moving to electric vehicles, cutting waste to landfill, changing how staff travel. Where you can, say what each measure saved or is expected to save. Concrete measures with numbers read far better than general intentions.

Step 7: Get it signed off and published

Finally, the plan has to be approved and dated at director or board level, and confirm it follows the recognised reporting standards. Then publish it on your own UK website, because the buyer will expect to find it there. Our guide to the mandatory sections covers what an assessor looks for in each part of the finished document.

What the finished plan looks like

The finished document is usually four to eight pages, in a fixed order that assessors expect to recognise:

• Supplier details and commitment. Company name, publication date, and a statement of commitment to achieving Net Zero, with a target year.
• Baseline emissions footprint. Your baseline year and its Scope 1, Scope 2 and required Scope 3 totals in tCO2e, or a note that the baseline is the current year for a first plan.
• Current emissions reporting. The same breakdown for the latest reporting year, so progress can be compared like for like.
• Emissions reduction targets. The reductions you are committing to, with a projection from baseline to target.
• Carbon reduction projects. Completed and planned measures, with savings where you have them.
• Declaration and sign-off. Confirmation of the reporting standards used, board-level approval and the date, published on your website.

If you want to see these sections filled in with realistic numbers, look at a worked Carbon Reduction Plan example.

Sequencing mistakes that cost the most time

Almost every painful rewrite comes from doing the steps out of order. The patterns to avoid:

• Writing prose before the numbers are settled. If the footprint changes, your percentage reductions, projection and project savings all become inconsistent, and you end up editing the same paragraphs three times.
• Choosing targets before calculating the baseline. A 20 percent cut sounds sensible until you find your baseline was mostly one leased van you have since returned, and the target is either trivial or impossible.
• Leaving the commuting survey until the last week. It is the one data item that depends on other people responding, so start it first, not last.
• Collecting only the current year’s data. The plan needs the baseline year too, and requesting historical bills from a former supplier can take weeks.
• Booking the director’s sign-off after the deadline rush. Approval is a real review step, not a signature on the way out of the door. Leave days, not hours.

Frequently asked questions

A faster route

Every step here except gathering your data is mechanical, which is why an automated tool handles it well. Carbon Sorted asks you plain questions, computes the emissions from the current conversion factors, drafts the narrative in your company voice and checks the result against PPN 006 before you export it. If you would rather not do the arithmetic by hand, you can start from the compliant template and preview a section free on your own data. If you are up against a submission date, the tender-ready plan page explains how the deadline workflow fits together.