Helping Greenwich Leisure LTD with Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting.

Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL) was established in 1993 when Greenwich Council (now Royal Borough of Greenwich) needed to find a new way to run its leisure centres due to public spending cuts.

Over the years GLL has expanded considerably and currently manages more than 270 public sport and leisure centres (including Olympic legacy sites such as London Aquatics Centre and Copper Box Arena), 113 libraries in partnership with 50 local councils, public agencies and sporting organisations across the UK.

GLL’s USP (unique selling point) is that they run their business in a charitable and social way. In 2007, GLL launched GLL Green, which is their strategy for carbon reduction focussing on operating their centres in the most environment friendly way possible.

Having been a key customer of LASER since 2009 and one of the first customers that chose LASER’s Bureau Services as well as procuring majority of their gas and electricity via LASER’s procurement frameworks. In 2019, GLL also chose to procure water through LASER. Our main contact at GLL since the very beginning has been their Energy and Environment Manager, Jeremy Gould.

Over the last 12 years, LASER has supported GLL with their energy monitoring and reporting, including mandatory reporting such as CRC (Carbon Reduction Commitment) and ESOS (Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme).

From LASER’s experience working with GLL, GLL has always been a customer that was very keen to ensure they complied with mandatory reporting requirements and also to report on voluntary reporting requirements as much as possible. In early 2019, the government released legislation on a new type of mandatory government reporting called SECR – Streamlined Energy and Carbon reporting.

SECR applies for quoted companies, large unquoted companies (including some Academy Trusts and Housing Associations) and large LLPs (Limited Liability Partnerships). To qualify as a “large” unquoted company or LLP a company has to meet two or more of the following criteria: –

• Turnover: £36 million or more
• Balance sheet total: £18 million or more
• Number of employees: 250 or more

What exactly a company needs to report under SECR depends on whether a company is a quoted company, large unquoted company or large LLP. But, as a general summary SECR participants are required to report the following: –

• Annual Energy usage in kWh for the reporting year.
• Annual GHG emissions in tonnes of CO₂e for the reporting year.
• At least one intensity ratio.
• Last year’s energy usage and GHG emissions figures (except of the first reporting year).
• Methodology used in calculation of disclosures.
• Information about energy efficiency action taken during the reporting year.

SECR is about transparency with the general public, investors and other stakeholders of a company regarding a company’s energy usage and what the company is doing about reducing their energy usage and emissions. SECR aims to replace the previous government reporting CRC, but also aims to include more companies who would not have been in scope previously.

GLL approached LASER in early 2020 to see if we could support them with SECR. GLL’s financial year is the calendar year and they only had to do their first reporting by March 2021 for the calendar year 2020. But, GLL were keen to be ahead of their game by reporting for 2019. Hence, LASER did their research on SECR guidance and developed a new service from scratch and provided GLL with a completed report before the scheme became a mandatory requirement.

LASER collects, monitors, validates and manages energy data (including invoice data, site meter reads and half hourly data) throughout the year for over 950 electricity and gas supplies among over 350 GLL centres using Systemslink, which is the energy management software used by us. Majority of GLL’s supplies with LASER are billed monthly and a high % of them had half hourly AMR (Automatic Meter Read) meters.

Hence, it was relatively straightforward for us to ensure maximum data coverage for supplies on LASER’s contract. However, there were a number of centres that were not on LASER’s contract because GLL was not responsible for the energy billing at those sites.

GLL worked with LASER to collect data for most Non LASER supplies including data from renewable supplies such as CHPs (Combined Heat & Power Systems), and also data from alternative fuels. LASER also supported GLL calculate their Scope 3 emissions from business mileage which included land, air and train travel as part of the SECR report.

LASER continues to produce GLL’s SECR report each year and takes the following steps: –

• Identify and confirm with GLL the premises and supplies to be included/ excluded from reporting.
• Ensure that we had maximum data for all supplies that were on LASER’s contract.
• Request data from GLL for all non-LASER supplies and alternative fuels.
• Import data for all non-LASER supplies into our system.
• Use estimation techniques for supplies were data coverage was less than 100%.
• Conduct data validation, analysis and variance checks for all supplies included for SECR.
• Use estimation techniques for supplies with less than 100% data for the reporting year.
• Identify and confirm with GLL supplies that would need to be classified as having zero emissions.
• Obtain emissions factors for all SECR reportable utilities using GHG factors released by the government department DEFRA.
• Calculate Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Intensity Ratios.
• Collate evidence pack which includes methodology, guidance and all raw data.
• Provide written report on steps taken to produce the report with section for GLL to complete on steps taken to improve energy efficiencies.

Due to Covid-19, many of GLL’s premises were closed for a major part of 2020 and also a high number of staff had to be furloughed. Hence, it was more challenging for LASER and GLL to discuss any data discrepancies and obtain data for Non LASER supplies and business mileage data for Scope 3 emissions.

To support LASER, Jeremy brought back some of his team from furlough to ensure we had all the data needed to comply with SECR. LASER had a dedicated team to work on GLL’s SECR reporting and we provided regular updates to GLL on reporting progress and had regular meetings with GLL to make sure all SECR reporting requirements were met on time.

By working closely with GLL throughout the process of collecting, validating and reporting on their emissions we were able to again deliver their SECR reporting by the deadline on 31^st March 2021. Currently we are working with GLL on streamlining how we collect their Non-LASER supplies/ alternative fuels for their 2021 SECR reporting and look forward to producing this report for them in early 2022.