Updates

In 2020 Police Scotland closed out its Carbon Management Plan. This five-year plan was successful in achieving 25% (+ 2%) savings on the carbon baseline of the organisation measured in 2013. However, in reviewing the plan, it was clear that we needed to widen our scope of carbon reduction action to a wider action approach.

Therefore, in 2021 the Environmental Strategy (ES) was enacted. This five-year Strategy addresses our three focus areas in reducing our environmental impact – our organisation, our people, and our communities. Table 1 provides further information on each of these focus areas.

Organisation

• Decarbonisation of our Fleet through complete transition to EV by 2029, based on the Fleet Strategy 2019
• Building disposal, co-location, and refurbishment, based on the Estates Strategy 2019
• Increase in our capacity to generate our own electricity through installation of PV arrays.
• Overall waste reduction and increase in proportion of waste diverted from landfill.
• Continue to focus on water efficiency by working to reduce leaks and repair infrastructure to avoid unnecessary consumption.

People

• Better communication of information to officers and staff through the intranet and other engagement work.
• Creation of a Green Leaders Network to champion and communicate sustainability work throughout the organisation.
• Continuing with our Small Action, Big Impact campaign to improve energy and resource awareness throughout the organisation.
• Creation of the Environmental Sustainability Board to increase the profile of our sustainability work and ensure that we have good governance over related issues.

Communities

• Collaborating with our Community Planning Partners to ensure that we learn and share knowledge with these organisations and capitalise on any opportunities for shared projects.
• Working with Local Authorities to provide information related to Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategies.
• Investigate all opportunities for district heat network connections that may exist within specific areas.

In addition to the aims of the Environmental Strategy, we continue to review our legislative responsibilities under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. Which requires us to undertake the following work:

• Act in as sustainable a way as possible. This is covered by Clause 4 of the Act, titled “Public Bodies Duties”. These duties also require us to:
• Submit an annual Climate Change Report to the Scottish Government every November based on our sustainability work in the previous financial year.
• Create an Adaptation Plan focussing on how we will improve our climate resilience.
• Create a Net Zero Plan, detailing our approach to achieving Net Zero emissions by the legislated national target date of 2045.

Public Bodies Climate Change Reporting

Public bodies in Scotland are required to submit an annual report to the Scottish Government no later than 30 November each year.

The 2023/24 submission will mark the eleventh annual report from Scottish Police Authority / Police Scotland, and it will show a ninth consecutive reduction in our carbon emissions. Total emissions for the year ending 31 March 2024 are 39,377 tCO2(e).

As a consequence of how mandatory reporting of public bodies was originally legislated for, we are obliged to submit two annual Reports, the first in the name of “The Scottish Police Authority” (SPA) and the second in the name of “The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Scotland”.

• The report in the name of “The Scottish Police Authority” contains all details and data. This report is signed by the Chief Executive of the SPA before submission to the Scottish Government.

• The report in the name of “The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Scotland”. contains no detail or data and cross-refers to “The Scottish Police Authority” Report. The report is left blank in order to avoid double counting. This has been agreed with the scheme administrator, Sustainable Scotland Network. This report is signed by the Chief Constable of Police Scotland before submission to the Scottish Government.

• Both reports require signatures to confirm that they have executive approval and have gone through the relevant governance processes.

Emissions Reduction (Mitigation)

We record our emissions in three main scopes. This allows us to track different sources of emissions to understand how key projects and programmes are reducing our environmental impact. Each of the scopes are detailed in Appendix 1.

For all 3 scopes, our total “reportable” emissions for FY 2023/24 is 38,678 tCO2e. This represents a 21.68% reduction on emissions in comparison with 2019/20, our reference year as identified in our Environmental Strategy.

Primary Reduction Sources and Impact

There has been a consistent overall reduction since in our emissions since 2014/15 as detailed in Appendix 1 and this is due to the following:

• The Estates Strategy has been successful in disposing of several buildings and relocating to shared premises. The National Estates Plan will accelerate this work over the next five to ten years.
• Continuing upgrade of heating, lighting and ICT infrastructure has helped to reduce consumption of gas and electricity across our portfolio.
• Increasing renewable sources for electricity generation has meant a reduction in the carbon intensity of the power we consume.
• Of our total Fleet complement of 3,400 vehicles, approximately one thousand have been replaced by Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (ULEVS). This has reduced our annual diesel consumption by approximately 1.7m litres.
• We have incurred a slight increase in onsite energy generation due to implementation of PV arrays at certain sites during the strategy.
• Whilst Covid lockdowns reduced numbers of building occupants, most of our sites remained open to accommodate functions that needed to be operated from Police buildings. This meant a small decrease in electricity and gas consumption but did not resolve into large scale savings across our portfolio.
• Improvement in provision of waste and recycling bins across the estate.

Whilst our scope 1 emissions (direct emissions from activities owned or controlled by an organisation) have reduced, the rate of reduction has slowed. This is a pattern seen across Scotland’s public sector organisations and recognised as such by the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy.

Adaptation Implementation

Climate change adaptation recognises that even if all greenhouse gas emissions were to cease immediately, there would still be change within the climate system that would last for centuries. This means that as well as emission reduction, we must adapt our buildings, people, and processes to a changing climate. As an organisation, we are already adept at climate impact planning in terms of emergency response resilience, and public safety in the event of extreme weather. Our aim is to improve these processes out with the area of emergency response to ensure that we have increased resilience within our infrastructure.

In the reporting year we continued to maintain our business continuity and emergency planning procedures as standard. In collaboration with colleagues and departments, we have established the importance of climate change risk assessment and adaptation, to ensure that our existing plans take account of potential risks.

To support the implementation of the Strategy, the Sustainability Team has developed an Adaptation Assessment Tool. This tool will be used to review and provide climate impact risk assessment and advice in relation to our major building projects. The Team is currently testing this tool using the proposed Oban new build project as a test case.

Acting Sustainably

Partnership working with other public sector organisations and seeking to drive behavioural change through campaigns such as Police Scotland’s “Small action, Big Impact” will encourage and promote acting sustainably. Our Green Leaders Network is a group of volunteers within the organisation who champion and promote sustainability initiatives in their local stations.

Future Challenges

In the coming year we will take forward the following work that will help to fulfil our obligations as a public body to improve our environmental impact and behaviours:
• The finalisation of our Net Zero Plan that defines our pathway to 2045 and will incorporate our Fleet Strategy and Estates Masterplan;
• Implement our Dalmarnock Travel Plan as a blueprint for an organisation wide approach to support sustainable commuting;
• Work towards being a Zero Waste organisation through development of a Waste Plan.