Delivering Scotland's low carbon opportunities

As Scotland makes the transition to a low carbon economy we are embedding sustainable, low carbon development into everything we do.

Our Low Carbon Implementation Plan shows what we are doing to help deliver Scotland’s low carbon business opportunities:

  • Supporting Scottish companies to innovate and diversify into new markets, technologies and supply chains.
  • Helping companies to embed low carbon into their business planning.
  • Through investment, helping to create a globally competitive low carbon business environment for Scotland.

PDF document Low Carbon Implementation Plan - February 2011

…but we can’t do it alone

The scale of the transformation needed involves working with a range of partners in the private and public sectors such as: Carbon Trust, Zero Waste Scotland, Industry Advisory Groups, SEPA and Scottish Natural Heritage.

Our policy and duties

We have adopted a Environmental Management and Low Carbon Policy to guide our contribution to delivering a low carbon economy in Scotland. We are also required to deliver duties that apply to all public bodies in relation to climate change, biodiversity and strategic environmental assessment.

Our policy will help us target the opportunities highlighted in the Government’s Low Carbon Economic Strategy as well as comply with the Climate Change Public Bodies Duty. It covers both our economic development support to growing companies and sectors as well as our internal operations

Through our Carbon Management we will improve the management of energy, waste and water across our offices and commercial property portfolio and reduce the environmental impact of our staff travel. We aim to reduce the emissions of CO2 from our operations by 42% by 2020.

For further information on our Low Carbon Implementation Plan and our internal Environmental Management activities contact Neil.Kitching@scotent.co.uk or Charlie.Ralley@scotent.co.uk

Biodiversity and greenspace

We have a duty to promote biodiversity under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 and are working with the Scottish Biodiversity Committee and Central Scotland Green Network to promote the business benefits of biodiversity and greenspace.

Strategic Environmental Assessment

Public agencies have to carry out a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of higher-level plans, strategies and programmes where they will have a significant environmental effect.

We carried out a full SEA of our 2007-10 Operating Plan and we’ll continue to monitor progress against our SEA objectives through the Low Carbon Implementation Plan. We’ll check for changes to our strategic approach which may trigger the requirement for another SEA to be carried out.

For information on how to improve your businesses biodiversity management or on Strategic Environmental Assessments please contact john.j.crawford@scotent.co.uk 

Low Carbon Skills Fund

Skills Development Scotland's Low Carbon Skills Fund offers Scottish businesses with up to 250 employees the opportunity to apply for up to £12,500 towards employee training costs.