The Scottish Climate Intelligence Service programme has had a busy start to the 2026. Recent highlights include:
- Over 1,500 interventions added to ClimateView dashboards across all 32 local authorities
- First ever collation and analysis of local government climate action across Scotland
- Creation and publication of 27 tailored Annual Emissions Inventory Reports (AEIRs)
Programme updates
In January, we hosted a session on the Scottish Area-wide Emissions Inventory and AEIRs (Annual Emission Inventory Reports). Led by our data team, the session focussed on SCIS’ unique and innovative methodology underpinning the area-wide emissions inventory for all 32 local authorities, reiterating the importance of focussing on area-wide emission reduction to accelerate climate action. This workshop coincided with our data team sending 27 tailored Annual Emission Inventory Reports to every local authority that asked for one. Our AEIRS are a labour of love from our data team and give local authorities: their total area-wide emissions, decrease in emissions since 2005/2023, provide analysis across key sectors and present key takeaways for officers to move forward.
In mid-February we presented our analysis of over 1,500 interventions from across the country to our local authority users. The session explored key insights such as:
- The state and scale of local authority climate action in Scotland
- The main transitions being adopted to drive Scotland's Net Zero Transition
- The key gaps and opportunities for area-wide decarbonisation
- Local authorities' main barriers to Net Zero
- The reported carbon reduction potential of current interventions
- The wider synergies of local authority climate action.
We’ll be presenting this data to our Programme Board in early March, and this analysis will inform discussions with national government and key delivery partners over the coming months.
In this vein, February also saw workshop one of our National Sprint series. We began a National Sprint programme with Scottish Government and Transport Scotland to help to bridge the gap between national policy and local delivery. Through three targeted workshops, we are beginning to co-design an improved approach to multi-level delivery of climate action by identifying national intelligence needs across key themes and sectors, sharing practitioner expertise, and showcasing insights from the SCIS programme and local authority dashboards. We were thrilled with the enthusiasm, openness and commitment showed by participants in workshop one and look forward to workshop two in March.
What’s coming up?
Over the coming months, SCIS will continue to deliver workshops and tailored support for local authority users, in addition to continuing to deliver tempo analysis and target balancing workshops for councils and continuing our Sprint with national government. Here is a look at what’s coming up:
Ongoing
- SCIS National Sprint Workshops
- Tempo analysis and target balancing workshops
February
- SCIS Spotlight: Carbon Calculators
March - April
- Support Plan 1-1s with all 32 local authorities
April
- SCIS Family Gatherings (in-person)
If you would like to find out more about the SCIS programme, you can visit our website here, sign up to our quarterly newsletter (read previous editions here) and follow us on LinkedIn. You can also contact the team at info@climateintelligenceservice.scot.