Climate Change Committee Approves Energy Use Benchmarking Project To Help Council Move To Net Zero

5th November 2022

Members at this week's Climate Change Committee approved a new project which will undertake an energy performance assessment of Highland Council's property portfolio.

The project will directly support and inform decisions with regards to achieving net zero, investment in buildings (to improve energy/Net Zero performance) and asset rationalisation options.

The project will help Highland Council identify building upgrade opportunities that can reduce expenditure by lowering energy and operating costs and facilitate continuous improvement by providing diagnostic measures to evaluate performance over time (such as the effectiveness of implemented projects).

Energy use benchmarking is a process that either compares the energy use of a building or group of buildings with other similar structures or looks at how energy use varies from a baseline.

Benchmarking is an important move forward and while it does not directly reduce energy consumption, it does provide the informed basis for justification of either behaviour change or investment in remedial works to realise savings in costs and energy.

The Project team will utilise the Scottish Public Sector Energy Benchmarking Tool, developed and published earlier this year, and carry out an evaluation of energy performance for all main properties within Highland Council property estate.

Finalisation of the report and associated deliverables are scheduled to be completed by March 2023.

Chair of the Climate Change Committee, Cllr Karl Rosie, said: "The availability of accurate and up to date information allows us to more effectively consider property management matters. Further it also allows us to identify where improvements can be made to our estate to help us realise our Net Zero goals. As such we are appreciative of the work undertaken to date and look forward to receiving the analysis in due course."