How to write a Carbon Reduction Plan

Once a tender has told you that you need a Carbon Reduction Plan, the next question is how to actually write one. This is a practical, step-by-step guide to doing exactly that: what to gather, how to turn it into emissions figures, and how to structure, sign and publish the finished plan.

The short answer: a Carbon Reduction Plan brings together your organisation’s emissions, its net zero commitment, reduction measures and management approval. Start with the records behind the numbers, then use the official template. This guide follows the PPN 006 route; a customer’s voluntary request or an NHS procurement may have its own instructions.

Before you start: what you will need

Most of the effort in a Carbon Reduction Plan is gathering your own numbers, so it helps to have them to hand before you begin. For a single 12-month period, usually your last financial year, pull together:

• Your energy bills, gas and electricity, and any other fuels you buy.
• Your vehicle and fleet records, mileage or fuel, and details of any freight you run or pay a haulier for.
• Business travel: flights, rail, taxis and employees' own-car business mileage. Hotel stays are an optional broader reporting boundary, available for UK stays in Carbon Verify's Extended footprint.
• Waste and wastewater figures from your bills and waste transfer notes. Water supply is an additional Extended footprint input.
• Purchasing records only where you are also assessing purchased goods and services, or your buyer asks for broader coverage.
• Employee commuting, which most small firms estimate with a short staff survey.

Separate measured figures, estimates and missing records. Where an estimate is appropriate, retain its method, evidence and limitations and check that it meets the reporting and tender requirements. A missing record is not zero emissions.

Step 1: Set your boundary and reporting year

First, identify the legal organisation making the bid and the operations included in its footprint. An operational-control approach covers operations you control; record why it is appropriate rather than assuming the office alone is the business. A parent-company plan is not automatically suitable for a subsidiary’s bid: check the specific PPN 006 conditions.

Choose a complete 12-month reporting period, often your last financial year, and check the tender’s recency requirements. If you have never reported a footprint, explain this and use that first period as your baseline year. If you already have a baseline, keep it separate from the latest reporting year and explain any justified recalculation.

Step 2: Gather your activity data

This is where the raw numbers come in, sorted into the three scopes:

• Scope 1, direct emissions. Fuel burned in operations you own or control, such as heating or company vehicles, and gases actually released from controlled equipment. Include relevant additional fuels and gas types rather than assuming the most common fields are the whole footprint.
• Scope 2, purchased energy. Electricity and any heat, steam or cooling you buy. Carbon Verify has optional heat/steam inputs where the published UK CHP-average method fits the supply; better supplier data or cooling needs a suitable documented separate figure.
• Scope 3, your value chain. The required categories are business travel, employee commuting, waste generated in your operations, and upstream and downstream transportation and distribution.

Gathering reliable source data is usually the largest part of the work. The figures need to come from your organisation’s records. Check that all required sources have a calculation route before treating the footprint as complete. A genuinely absent activity can be recorded with an explanation; a missing record cannot be treated as zero.

If you are unsure why an activity belongs in a particular scope, see Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions explained before entering it.

Step 3: Convert the data into emissions

Turn activity into tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) using the relevant UK Government conversion factors. Match the activity, unit and factor edition to the reporting period and document your method, especially where a financial year crosses calendar years. Do not simply apply today’s factors to every historic year.

The basic calculation is activity × factor. If a factor is in kgCO2e per kWh, divide the result by 1,000 to report tCO2e. Keep Scope 1, Scope 2 and the relevant Scope 3 categories separate and check that you have not counted the same activity twice.

Applying the conversion factors is a detailed step. The government workbook contains many factors and units, so each activity figure must be mapped carefully. Carbon Verify automates its configured calculations and records the factor used; a consultant or independent reviewer can still support boundary decisions, data quality, assumptions or assurance.

Carbon Verify opens in Standard CRP · PPN 006, focused on this reporting subset and the plan information. Purchased goods and services are outside the five required Scope 3 categories, although a buyer may ask for wider coverage. Turn on Extended footprint if you also need purchases or other supported additional sources; the Evidence Pack, saved projects and personalised documents are included in both modes.

Relevant Other fuels, Other refrigerants or gases released and Other purchased energy inputs stay in Standard. Shared-load freight can use shipment weight and distance: category 4 for transport you pay for, including outbound delivery, or category 9 for after-sale distribution you do not pay for. Do not count the same fuel or journey again in another input.

If a supplier, consultant or another method has already calculated a missing source, use A figure from a supplier or separate calculation. Record its gross emissions using the report's exact kgCO₂e or tCO₂e unit, correct scope/category, exact reporting dates, source, method, evidence and matching boundary, then check and confirm no overlap with existing entries. Scope 1, Scope 2 and categories 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9 can be included in Standard; other categories are active only in Extended. Entering a figure does not assure its correctness. The separate-figure checklist explains what to retain.

In Extended footprint, Carbon Verify can select factors for its supported separately billed legal, accountancy and IT consultancy services. These are industry-average spending estimates with a documented price adjustment where published data are available—not supplier measurements or a complete purchases inventory. Other purchase types and incomplete price periods remain for separate assessment. See the purchases checklist and method and limitations.

Step 4: Set your net zero commitment and targets

Your plan must state, clearly, that your organisation is committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by 2050. Alongside that, set out your baseline year and the reduction targets you are aiming for, including projected emissions over the next five years. Targets should be honest and achievable rather than ambitious for show; you may be held to them.

Step 5: Describe your carbon reduction measures

The plan is not only about numbers; it has to set out what you are actually doing to cut emissions. List the measures you already have in place and the ones you plan to introduce, for example switching to a renewable electricity tariff, reducing business travel, improving vehicle efficiency, or cutting waste. Small, concrete measures are fine and count. What matters is that they are real and that you can point to them.

Step 6: Write it into the template

A compliant plan follows the government's required structure, the template at Annex A of the guidance. In practice that means a document containing your commitment to net zero, your baseline and current emissions across the three scopes, your targets, the reduction measures above, and a declaration. Following the template matters: a plan that leaves out a required section can fail the check, even if the underlying work is sound.

Step 7: Review a draft, approve it and publish it

Give management a clearly marked draft to check before recording approval. Carbon Verify lets you preview a draft for your chosen purpose without claiming it is approved or ready to publish. Outstanding checks remain visible; resolve them before issuing a final plan.

In the app, stage 6, Reduction plan, holds your targets, measures and approval details. All document controls are in stage 7, Check & download. You can go there before the plan is finished: open Need a draft for review? to preview the draft or download draft Word, then return to resolve the questions and record genuine approval. Use the main CRP control for the checked final Word or HTML plan.

For the PPN 006 route, obtain board-level or equivalent management approval and director-level or equivalent sign-off. Record the approver's name, role and date; the technical standard does not require a physical signature. Publish the final plan on your UK website at a stable, accessible address and review it at least annually. Follow the technical standard and your buyer’s instructions for publication, reporting dates and any permitted exceptions.

Worked example: a small business preparing its first plan

Fictional teaching example—not a verified footprint or an approved plan. Example Office Services Ltd has 18 staff, one leased office and a company van. It is preparing a plan for a buyer that requires the PPN 006 format. It has no earlier footprint, so 1 January to 31 December 2025 is both its baseline and its current reporting period.

This 2025 example explains the plan's structure; it is not a set of inputs to copy into the current app. This Carbon Verify edition supports reporting periods ending in 2026. Use the guided demo for a 2026 app example, and use the appropriate factor edition for any real historical reporting period.

Its preparer checks the office energy bills, van fuel records, travel claims, a commuting survey, waste records and the relevant delivery records. After calculation and review, suppose the totals are:

The illustrative Scope 3 subtotal is 2.00 upstream transport + 0.50 waste + 4.00 business travel + 5.00 commuting + 1.00 downstream transport. These are invented totals to explain the structure, not benchmark values or conversion factors. They do not represent all 15 Scope 3 categories.

The two columns are identical because this is the first reporting year. The business must not invent an earlier baseline or claim reductions it has not measured. Next year it can compare the new figures with this baseline on a consistent basis.

Suppose management approves an illustrative target of a 15% reduction by 2030. The calculation is 23.00 × 0.85 = 19.55 tCO2e. That is a target, not an achieved result or proof of a science-aligned pathway. The business would need credible measures and a review process to support its own chosen target.

• Office energy: agree heating hours with the landlord and compare metered use, recording occupancy changes.
• Travel: introduce a rail-first option for suitable journeys and track actual travel, not just the policy’s existence.
• The van: review mileage and fuel use before deciding whether a replacement is practical.

A useful action entry names the change, responsible person, intended date and how progress will be measured. Avoid a generic list of measures the business has not agreed to carry out.

What to put in each section

1. Supplier and commitment: the correct legal entity, publication date and approved UK net zero commitment.
2. Baseline: the year, scope totals and a short explanation of the boundary and any gaps or restatements.
3. Current emissions: the reporting period and scope totals, with a traceable calculation record behind them.
4. Targets: the reduction intended, its reference year and deadline. Label projections as projections.
5. Measures: distinguish completed initiatives from future proposals and connect them to your sources of emissions.
6. Declaration: use the required template wording only where it accurately describes your preparation and approval.

Before publishing: five final checks

• Does the plan cover the bidding entity and the required period?
• Do the scope subtotals add up, with the five required Scope 3 categories accounted for or any permitted exclusion properly explained?
• Are estimates, sources and factor editions documented?
• Has the appropriate director or equivalent approved and signed the plan?
• Can the buyer open the published plan without an account, and is it due for its next annual review?

Keep the detailed evidence pack securely. Publishing a plan does not mean publishing employee travel records, bills or commercially sensitive working files.

Keep the editable project as well as the issued plan

In Carbon Verify, use Save project file to retain a dated .carbonverify copy alongside the issued plan and original evidence. Check the organisation and period before switching. Open project restores a supported file; New project starts empty. Read the project guide for the difference between browser autosave and a portable copy.

Documents are plain by default. Use Appearance for optional project-specific logos and support credits; see branded, editable documents. If underlying figures change, update Carbon Verify, repeat the relevant review and approval, and regenerate. Editing Word does not update the project or create independent assurance.

Official sources and further reading

• Cabinet Office: PPN 006 and the official Carbon Reduction Plan template
• PPN 006 technical standard: boundaries, emissions, publication and approval
• UK Government conversion factors by reporting year
• Carbon Footprint Statement, Carbon Reduction Plan and Evidence Pack: which document does what?

How Carbon Verify supports the process

Steps 1, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of this guide require supplier judgement and approval; they are not the app's stage numbers. Carbon Verify organises activity figures, applies its configured factors and prepares a self-assessed plan for review. A final CRP requires the relevant data, coverage checks, reviews and genuine management approval. Clearly marked draft plans and working Evidence Packs can be exported earlier for review; invalid numbers or reversed dates still need correcting first. A working Evidence Pack can retain unresolved source or evidence entries labelled pending, rather than requiring final coverage and approval. Emissions activity data stays in the browser; licence checks are handled separately by Lemon Squeezy.

The separate Carbon Footprint Statement is optional and sits in a closed explainer in Check & download. It provides a self-declared footprint summary with its own internal sign-off; you do not need to produce it to create a CRP. The declaration and approval within the CRP remain part of that plan. The guided demo uses locked fictional inputs; its completed samples match the selected business, reporting mode and document style, rather than becoming your own approved plan.