Developing a Decarbonisation Strategy in 2025

Make 2025 the year of decarbonisation action for your organisation. Benefits, actions, and why 2025?
What is a Decarbonisation Strategy?
A Decarbonisation Strategy outlines a company’s greenhouse gas (GHG) profile, emission reduction targets and the measures to be implement to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate environmental impacts. The strategies act as an effective demonstration of a company’s commitment to sustainable business practices, helping them to remain competitive in a demanding and evolving market.
Why is 2025 a Key Year to take Decarbonisation Action?
The 2020s were termed the ‘decade of action’, with many nations and companies having decarbonisation targets in place which commit them to key milestones on or before 2030. The significance of this is twofold:
- International and national legislation is increasing and becoming more complex across all sectors. Companies must therefore be committed towards managing and addressing relevant aspects of sustainability in order to comply with regulatory reporting requirements.
- Proactive organisations on track to achieve decarbonisation targets are establishing themselves as leaders, attracting a strong customer base, securing investment and leaving uncommitted companies behind.
Sustainable business practices are only going to become more pressing as nations worldwide progress towards net zero commitments, introducing increasingly more stringent policies as environmental targets loom closer. By acting now, companies can ready themselves for the future landscape of business requirements for all areas of decarbonisation.
What are the Benefits of a Decarbonisation Strategy?
A Decarbonisation Strategy addresses the suitable range of decarbonisation levers that are feasible from a market, regulatory and technical basis across a company’s complete international portfolio to provide a bespoke pathway for reaching net zero targets.
Creating a Decarbonisation Strategy has a number of key benefits including:
- Understanding Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions to measure the impacts of business operations
- Meeting expectations from stakeholders, customers and employees
- Fulfilling criteria of applicable legislative requirements, such as CSRD
- Aligning with best-practice initiatives such as the SBTi and B-Corp
- Developing more efficient practices to save energy and costs
The Key Stages
- Quantify Emissions
Calculate a company’s Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon footprint to highlight the distribution of emissions and identify carbon hotspots across the entire value chain. - Set Decarbonisation Targets
Commit to emissions reduction targets to promote the company’s climate ambition. - Assess Decarbonisation Options
Evaluate relevant decarbonisation levers across global operations to identify actions that align with a company’s long-term agenda, environmental targets and financial objectives. - Finalise a Bespoke Roadmap
Analyse the selected levers to map out the chosen decarbonisation pathway(s), including implementation timeframes alongside financial and carbon modelling. - Implementation
Execute the decarbonisation levers to secure emission reductions in line with the decarbonisation roadmap and report tangible progress back to key stakeholders.
Updating and Monitoring
A Decarbonisation Strategy requires a dynamic and evolving approach. A company’s emissions and corporate objectives will change as they grow and develop over time and this should be reflected through updates to the strategy. Monitoring carbon emissions allows companies to review the impact of implemented decarbonisation levers, enabling the assessment of progress against milestones.
Decarbonisation progress can be visualised through tools such as the Carbon Footprint Dashboard to track and communicate long-term trajectories in a simple and concise format to improve engagement with key stakeholders.
Continual Improvement
The data quality behind a company’s emissions profile is a key driver for decarbonisation success. Improving the accuracy behind the data is essential for providing a true representation of impacts. Companies are expected to improve calculation methodologies as data collection streams are established and refined to showcase more precise emissions reporting.
To maximise the impact of a Decarbonisation Strategy, companies are encouraged to periodically review progress against commitments. Through analysis of the impact of each lever on their emissions profile, companies can evaluate the success of their investments into decarbonisation and adapt the strategy to optimise future investments.
How NUS Can Support
NUS have a dedicated team who specialise in developing and implementing bespoke Decarbonisation Strategies. We partner with our clients to develop a detailed knowledge of their operations, markets, corporate agenda, climate targets and financial objectives. Once the strategy is approved, our Energy and Sustainability Services (ESS) team have the expertise to work alongside companies to implement chosen solutions, including on-site energy audits, unbundled EACs, heat pumps, solar PV, energy efficiency measures and PPAs.
Get in Touch
To explore options around creating a Decarbonisation Strategy for your company, contact your NUS consultant or email UKSustainability@nusconsulting.co.uk.
