Carbon Action Plans

A plan built from your data, not a template with your logo on it

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Most carbon action plans fail in the same way

They open with an ambitious target, list every conceivable measure from LED lighting to heat pumps, attach no credible costs or sequencing, and then sit on a shelf because nobody can tell what to do first or how to pay for it.

Nero Energy builds carbon action plans the other way round. We start with your actual consumption data, half-hourly where it exists, establish an honest baseline, and work out what genuinely moves the numbers for your buildings, your budget and your funding position.

The result is a plan your board can approve, your finance team can budget against, and your estates team can deliver, with the first year’s actions specified rather than gestured at.

Who this is for

Schools and multi-academy trusts.

The Department for Education expects every education setting to have a sustainability lead and a climate action plan in place. Many settings have responded with a policy document; far fewer have a plan grounded in what their buildings actually consume.

For trusts, the challenge multiplies across an estate of varying ages, heating systems and metering arrangements, and the plan needs to prioritise across schools, not just within them. We work extensively with schools and MATs and understand the operational realities: term dates, teaching disruption, governance cycles and constrained capital.

Local authorities and public bodies

Declared climate emergencies and corporate net zero targets need delivery plans that survive contact with budget rounds. We translate ambition into costed, sequenced programmes across an estate.

Businesses.

Customers, lenders and tender processes increasingly ask for a carbon reduction plan, and bidders on major public contracts are required to publish one.

Beyond the compliance driver, a good plan is simply a demand reduction programme with a carbon lens, and demand reduction pays for itself. If you report under SECR or comply with ESOS, the plan should build on that data rather than duplicating the effort.

What a Nero carbon action plan contains

A defensible baseline

Scope 1 and 2 emissions calculated from metered consumption using current government conversion factors, with the factor vintage documented. Scope 3 categories included where they are material and measurable, with estimation clearly flagged as estimation. If the underlying data is poor, we say so and fix the data first, because a plan built on guessed numbers produces guessed results.

Analysis of where the energy actually goes

Half-hourly data analysis to separate baseload from operational demand, identify out-of-hours waste, and benchmark sites against each other and against sector norms. In our experience this stage routinely finds savings that require no capital at all: heating running through holidays, controls fighting each other, plant scheduled for a building pattern that no longer exists.

A measures register with honest numbers

Each measure costed with indicative capital cost, annual saving, carbon impact and payback, and ranked. We are technology agnostic, so the register reflects what your data supports rather than any preferred product. Where a heat pump is the right answer we will say so; where the right answer is fixing the controls and insulating the pipework first, we will say that instead, because decarbonising a wasteful building means paying to decarbonise the waste.

Sequencing that respects reality

Fabric and controls before plant replacement where that is the sensible order. Measures grouped to align with maintenance cycles, funding windows and, for schools, holiday periods. A plan that requires everything at once is not a plan.

A funding strategy

This is where many plans quietly die. The funding landscape shifts constantly: national schemes open and close, devolved and regional programmes emerge with their own rules, and Salix-administered funding, the Condition Improvement Fund and internal capital all have different requirements and timescales. We track this landscape as part of our core business and build the plan so that individual projects are funding-ready, with the survey data and feasibility evidence that applications demand. We never assume grant funding will be available; we plan for the routes that exist and keep options open for those that may.

Governance and monitoring

Named responsibilities, a reporting cycle, and metrics that will actually be tracked. For schools, this aligns with the DfE expectation of a designated sustainability lead; for businesses, with board-level ownership. We recommend annual re-baselining against metered data, so progress is measured rather than asserted.

What we deliberately do not do

We do not produce hundred-page documents that restate national policy. We do not include measures without numbers attached. We do not promise savings we have not modelled, and where figures are indicative we label them as indicative. And we do not treat offsetting as a substitute for reducing demand: our position, across everything we do, is that the cheapest and lowest-carbon unit of energy is the one you do not buy.

How the engagement runs

1. Scoping

We agree the boundary, gather consumption data, meter details, floor areas, DECs and EPCs where they exist, and any previous surveys or audits.

2. Baseline and analysis.

We build the emissions baseline and run the consumption analysis, then review the findings with you before writing a word of the plan.

3. Measures and sequencing

We develop the measures register, test the priorities against your budget and operational constraints, and map funding routes to projects.

4. The plan

We develop the measures register, test the priorities against your budget and operational constraints, and map funding routes to projects.

5. Delivery support, if you want it

Feasibility studies, funding applications, procurement and project oversight for the measures you take forward. The plan stands alone if you would rather deliver it in-house.

Why Choose Nero Energy?

We are an independent energy and decarbonisation consultancy

We do not sell equipment, we do not take supplier incentives, and our recommendations carry no hidden commercial agenda.

Our team works daily with half-hourly data, billing validation, procurement and funding applications across schools, trusts, public bodies and commercial clients, which means the plan is written by people who also know how to deliver it and what things actually cost.

A carbon action plan should be the document that makes the next five years of decisions easier. If yours is not doing that, or you do not yet have one, talk to us. An initial review of your consumption data costs nothing and usually tells both of us whether there is a worthwhile plan to build.