Carbon reporting software: what it must do for UK compliance

No. Nothing in the SECR regulations requires software, and there is no approved or certified list of SECR tools. Many companies meet SECR from utility bills, fleet records, the official DESNZ conversion factors and a spreadsheet, with the method written down. Software becomes worthwhile as sites, entities and frameworks multiply.

There is no such status: no regulator approves carbon software for SECR. A tool is fit for SECR if it produces what Schedule 7 asks for — energy use in kWh, emissions, at least one intensity ratio, the methodology, energy efficiency action and the prior year — on the right scope for your company, using the DESNZ factors for the year the activity took place.

The DESNZ set whose year matches the activity data. The 2026 factors, published on 11 June 2026, are for activity falling entirely or mostly within 2026, so a company reporting its 2026 year in 2027 uses them. DESNZ changed the electricity factor methodology in 2026, so a year-on-year fall in Scope 2 can be a methodology effect rather than a real reduction.

Check its own documentation against the SECR provisions: does it distinguish quoted from unquoted companies, treat AIM companies as unquoted, apply the two-year size rule, include transport fuel for unquoted companies, give the UK and offshore split for quoted ones, handle the 40,000 kWh relief as a stated omission, match DESNZ factors to the activity year and export a disclosure a director can sign? Ask for a demonstration on your own data rather than relying on a rating or badge.

Some does. For a listed company reporting against UK SRS S2 under the FCA’s comply-or-explain rules from 2027, the software must report location-based Scope 2 (market-based is optional extra information), track Scope 3 by category, and record whether the one-year Scope 3 relief is being used. Check the output against the standard rather than a “UK SRS ready” label.

Yes, most carbon accounting tools offer spend-based Scope 3, multiplying spend by an emissions-per-pound factor. It is a screening method: quick and complete but coarse, and it cannot show a supplier’s real reductions. The GHG Protocol treats no Scope 3 category as optional, so a tool should show which categories were screened and which excluded, and why.

Not necessarily, but ESOS asks for more structure than SECR: total energy consumption across four organisational purposes (buildings, transport, industrial processes and any other purpose), with an energy intensity ratio for each, and the areas making up at least 95% of consumption. A tool that already holds metered data by site and purpose makes that much easier.