If your business is growing, there's a point where carbon reporting stops being optional and becomes a legal filing. That point is SECR — here's whether it applies to you and exactly what it asks for.
What SECR is
SECR — Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting — is a UK legal requirement for larger companies to disclose their energy use and carbon emissions in their annual reports. It came into force for financial years starting on or after 1 April 2019, replacing the older CRC scheme and widening the number of businesses that must report.
Unlike PPN 06/21 (a procurement requirement) or PAS 2080 (a management standard), SECR is a statutory reporting obligation — the figures go into the accounts you file, and directors are responsible for them.
Does it apply to you?
SECR applies to three groups:
- Quoted companies (listed on a main exchange)
- Large unquoted companies
- Large Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs)
For the unquoted and LLP groups, "large" means meeting at least two of these three in a reporting year:
| Test | Threshold |
|---|---|
| Employees | 250 or more |
| Annual turnover | £36 million or more |
| Balance sheet total | £18 million or more |
If you're a growing contractor, this is the threshold to watch — it's easy to cross the employee or turnover test after a few strong years and not realise SECR now applies.
The low-energy exemption. If your organisation consumes 40,000 kWh or less of energy over the reporting period, you can state that it's a low energy user and are exempt from the detailed disclosures. Most active construction firms with plant and vehicles use far more than this, so don't assume it applies without checking.
What you have to report
For a large unquoted company or LLP, the disclosure in the directors' (or energy and carbon) report must cover:
- UK energy consumption in kWh — from gas, purchased electricity, and transport
- The associated Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions in tonnes of CO₂e
- At least one intensity ratio (for example, tCO₂e per £m turnover, or per employee) so performance can be compared year to year
- A summary of the energy efficiency actions taken during the year
- The methodology used to calculate the figures
Quoted companies report on a wider, global basis and include additional detail. Whichever category you fall into, the calculations should use the GHG Protocol and the UK Government's DEFRA conversion factors for the relevant year.
Where it goes
SECR disclosures sit in the directors' report within your statutory annual accounts — the same accounts filed at Companies House. That means the numbers are public, and they're the board's responsibility, so they need to be right and traceable, not estimated at the last minute.
How SECR fits with your other carbon reporting
The frameworks overlap more than they look:
- SECR = the annual legal disclosure of your energy and Scope 1/2 emissions.
- PPN 06/21 = the procurement gate needing a published Carbon Reduction Plan (Scope 1, 2 and a Scope 3 subset).
- PAS 2080 = the management standard for whole-life carbon on projects.
They all draw on the same underlying data — energy, fuel, materials and transport converted to CO₂e on DEFRA factors. Capture that data once, consistently, and each report becomes a formatting job rather than an annual scramble.
How to prepare
- Check your status early — track headcount, turnover and balance sheet against the two-of-three test so SECR doesn't surprise you.
- Measure all year — record energy, fuel and transport as you go, not in a rush before the accounts.
- Use DEFRA factors and keep the methodology documented so the figures are defensible.
- Pick your intensity ratio and report it consistently year on year so the trend is visible.
- Give your accountant clean numbers well before the filing deadline.
The reporting itself is straightforward once the data exists. The firms that struggle are the ones reconstructing a year of energy use from scattered invoices in the final week — which is exactly the problem continuous tracking removes.