SECR · tools judged against the statute
SECR reporting software: what a tool must hand back
SECR reporting software is any tool that turns a company’s energy data into the figures Schedule 7 to SI 2008/410 requires in the directors’ report.
No tool is “SECR-compliant”: the duty is the company’s, and the specification is the schedule, not a vendor’s feature list.
This page sets out what a tool has to produce, the decisions it cannot make on your behalf, and the questions that separate a reporting tool from a dashboard. It does not rank or price products.
The specification
The outputs Schedule 7 needs, whatever the tool
| Output | Paragraph | What to check in a tool |
|---|---|---|
| Energy consumed, kWh | ¶15(3A) / ¶20D(3) | Every source in the boundary, including grey-fleet mileage converted to fuel; heat, steam and cooling for a quoted company. |
| Emissions from fuel, gas and transport, tCO2e | ¶15(2) / ¶20D(1) | Which factor set and year; how estimates are flagged. |
| Emissions from purchased energy, tCO2e | ¶15(3) / ¶20D(2) | A location-based figure first; a market-based one alongside if you hold contracts. |
| UK and offshore proportions (quoted) | ¶15(3B)–(3C) | Site-level geography, not just a group total. |
| At least one intensity ratio | ¶17 / ¶20G | Your chosen denominator, and whether more than one can be carried. |
| Methodology | ¶16 / ¶20F | An export a director can read: standard, factor set, boundary, estimates. |
| Last year’s figures | ¶18 and ¶18A / ¶20H | Energy as well as emissions for quoted companies; what happens on restatement. |
| Efficiency measures | ¶15(3D) / ¶20D(4) | Written by people; a tool can hold the evidence, not the judgement. |
For a quoted company the comparative duty sits in two paragraphs: ¶18 covers emissions and the ratio, and ¶18A covers the kWh figure, the UK proportions and the narrative, so a tool that only carries forward emissions leaves a year of energy data out.
For an unquoted company or LLP, the figures may be UK-only, and the transport-fuel limb reaches journeys in vehicles the company does not own where it pays for the fuel; the guidance puts the test as who is responsible for purchasing the fuel.
Two quieter rules matter for software: the period for the emissions must be stated if it differs from the directors’ report, and energy and emissions must share one period (¶¶19–19A, ¶¶20I–20J).
The full paragraph register is on the SECR requirements page, and the finished block these outputs fill is the SECR report template.
Your specification
The rows your tool must produce, for your type of reporter
Before comparing tools, write down the specification: the rows your company owes, which depends on whether it is quoted, unquoted or an LLP.
The builder beside this text produces that list, with the paragraph behind each row and the statement any relief would leave in the report.
A quoted company’s list is longer — worldwide figures, heat, steam and cooling, and the UK and offshore proportions for both energy and emissions — so a tool built around UK-only reporting will fall short for it.
An unquoted company’s list includes transport fuel the company pays for, which most often lives in expense claims rather than in any energy system, so a tool that cannot take mileage claims leaves a gap.
The electricity row for an unquoted company includes electricity bought “for the purposes of transport”, so charging an electric fleet belongs in it, and a tool that files EV charging under a separate heading needs to bring it back.
“Gas” in Part 7A is defined to include propane, butane and hydrogen as well as natural gas, so LPG burned on site sits in the gas row.
Every figure must cover the same period: for an unquoted company ¶20J requires the electricity and energy figures to run for the same period as the gas and transport figures, and ¶20I requires the report to state that period if it differs from the financial year.
SECR disclosure builder · Schedule 7
In the directors’ report, row by row:
- Emissions from gas combustion and transport fuel, tCO2e (UK) ¶20D(1)
- Emissions from purchased electricity, including for transport, tCO2e ¶20D(2)
- Energy consumed behind both, kWh ¶20D(3)
- Principal energy efficiency measures taken, if any ¶20D(4)
- Methodologies used ¶20F
- At least one emissions intensity ratio ¶20G
- Last year’s figures, from the second year ¶20H
- The reporting period, if different from the directors’ report ¶20I
An indicative reading of SI 2008/410 Sch 7 Parts 7 and 7A.
Not legal advice.
Conversion factors
Which factor set, and what happens to last year
The government publishes its conversion factors once a year; the 2026 set appeared on 11 June 2026 and its flat file was corrected on 31 July 2026.
The methodology paper says the 2026 factors are for activity data falling entirely or mostly within 2026, so a tool should pick the set by the year the energy was used, not the year the report is written.
Ask whether it re-runs last year with this year’s factors or keeps last year’s published figures; both can be defended, but the methodology statement has to say which.
A tool that silently re-bases comparatives turns a factor change into what looks like an efficiency gain, which is the misreading the comparative duty exists to prevent.
The SECR reporting guide explains the factor year and the 2026 change in more detail.
DESNZ shortened the data lag in its 2026 electricity factor from two years to one, so the move from the 2025 set carries two years of grid change plus methodological corrections.
Source: 2026 major changes report
Judgement
Two decisions a tool cannot make for you
The first is the intensity ratio: there is no prescribed ratio or denominator, one is enough, and it must express emissions rather than energy.
A tool that ships with one default has made a choice the regulations left to the company, and DESNZ’s 2026 review names “heterogeneous intensity metrics” as a reason SECR disclosures are hard to compare.
The review lists a standardised template among five candidate areas for a planned consultation, none decided; treat any product marketed against a coming SECR template with care.
The second is the boundary — which subsidiaries, sites and vehicles are in — and it drives every number the tool produces.
A group report may leave out a subsidiary that would not itself have had to disclose (¶20E(3)), and a tool that cannot model partial-year acquisitions will be worked around in a spreadsheet.
The efficiency narrative is the third thing no tool writes: a platform can hold meter data and project records, but the principal measures are for the directors to describe.
The ratio, verbatim
“The directors’ report must state at least one ratio which expresses the company’s annual emissions in relation to a quantifiable factor associated with the company’s activities.”
Sch 7 ¶17 and ¶20G — legislation.gov.uk
Beyond SECR
What SECR never asks a tool to do
SECR asks for no Scope 3 beyond transport fuel, no assurance, no target and no plan.
Those capabilities are legitimate buying reasons for where a company is heading, not for this duty.
A listed company now faces UK SRS S2 on a comply-or-explain basis from 2027, which reaches value-chain emissions; an organisation also in ESOS collects overlapping energy data on a four-year clock, compared on ESOS vs SECR.
Buying only for SECR can mean buying twice; the measurement-layer tests for broader needs are in our guide to carbon accounting software.
On filing format, the FRC’s digital reporting taxonomies incorporate SECR among the legislative requirements they model, which matters if a tool feeds a tagged annual report.
Evidence
The audit trail a tool should leave behind every figure
No one assures a SECR section by law, but people do read it: the auditor, the board that approves it, the FRC if it reviews the report, and next year’s team.
The auditor’s duty under section 496 is to say whether the directors’ report is consistent with the accounts and prepared in accordance with the law, so a kWh figure that cannot be reconciled to the energy costs in the accounts invites questions.
A tool earns its place if it keeps, for every number, the source document, the quantity, the factor and its year, and any estimate with its basis.
It should also freeze a year once it is reported, because ¶20H asks for last year’s information “as disclosed in the report for the preceding financial year”, not as a tool recalculates it later with new factors.
Where a restatement is useful — a boundary change, a corrected meter — the tool should show the restated figure beside the disclosed one, not in place of it.
Exports matter more than dashboards: the board needs a table it can put in the annual report, and the auditor needs workings it can follow without logging in.
The SECR report template shows the finished table those exports should feed.
In an afternoon
Six questions that separate a reporting tool from a dashboard
| Question | A good answer looks like |
|---|---|
| Can it export the directors’-report block? | Text and figures with comparatives, produced from your data, not a chart pack. |
| Which factor set applies to which period? | Named by year, chosen by activity year, with a stated policy on prior-year figures. |
| How does it handle the group? | Subsidiaries, partial-year acquisitions and exempt entities modelled, not patched. |
| Can it carry more than one ratio? | Yes, with the denominator you choose and last year’s value alongside. |
| What does the methodology export say? | Standard, factor set, boundary and estimates in words a director can sign against. |
| Where does it leave you next? | A clear account of what it does and does not do for UK SRS S2, ESOS or EU reporting. |
Individual platform pages on this site — among them Greenly, Normative, Sweep, Watershed and Cority — are best read through these six questions.
The wider market is on carbon reporting software, and the sister reference secr.quest keeps its own SECR guidance page.
Do you need one?
When a spreadsheet is enough
An unquoted company is only in SECR if it exceeds two of £36 million turnover, £18 million balance sheet and 250 employees, and a company that consumed 40,000 kWh or less may say so instead of disclosing the figures.
DESNZ’s evaluation measured about 19,900 organisations in scope, a mean ongoing cost of £7,100 a year per complier and about 94 hours of internal staff time, with 56% paying for some external help.
Software is one answer to those hours; with a handful of meters and one fleet, a spreadsheet and the published factors often do the job.
Software built for the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme has nothing to report to now: the scheme was revoked from 1 October 2018, as carbon reduction commitment software sets out.
Tools earn their place on multi-site estates, complex group boundaries and data scattered across suppliers and expense systems.
Whatever holds the data, the SECR overview is the place to start, and the SECR reporting guide walks one reporting year.
Frequently asked
SECR software, answered
What software supports SECR data reporting?
Any tool that can take a company’s own energy data and produce the figures Schedule 7 asks for: emissions in tonnes of CO2 equivalent, the energy behind them in kWh, at least one intensity ratio, and a record of the method, each with the previous year’s figure.
Spreadsheets, carbon accounting platforms and energy management systems can all do this; the test is the output, not the label.
Is any software SECR-compliant?
No. SECR duties fall on the company and its directors, and are discharged in the directors’ report or an LLP’s energy and carbon report.
A tool can make that easier or harder.
Treat “SECR-compliant software” as marketing, and check what the tool produces against the paragraphs of Schedule 7.
Does SECR software need to calculate Scope 3?
Not for SECR.
The only value-chain element SECR requires is the transport-fuel limb for unquoted companies and LLPs — fuel the company pays for, including reimbursed business mileage.
Broader Scope 3 matters for UK SRS S2 and for EU reporting, so it may matter to where a company is heading, but it is not a SECR requirement.
Which conversion factors should a SECR tool apply?
The UK government conversion factors for the year in which the activity took place.
DESNZ says the 2026 factors are for activity data falling entirely or mostly within 2026.
A tool should show which set it applied to which period, and what it does to last year’s figures when the set changes.
Do small companies need SECR software?
Often not.
An unquoted company is only in SECR if it exceeds two of £36 million turnover, £18 million balance sheet and 250 employees, and a company that consumed 40,000 kWh or less may say so instead of disclosing the figures.
With a few meters and one fleet, a spreadsheet and the published factors can do the job; tools earn their keep on multi-site estates and complex groups.
Can software choose our SECR intensity ratio?
It should not decide it for you.
The regulations require at least one ratio of annual emissions to a quantifiable factor associated with the company’s activities and leave the factor to the company.
A tool’s default denominator is a choice the law left to the directors, so confirm it deliberately and keep it from year to year.
Is there a SECR digital taxonomy?
The FRC’s UK digital reporting taxonomies, used to tag annual reports filed electronically, incorporate SECR requirements among the legislative requirements they model.
Tagging is a filing format question; it does not change what the disclosure must contain.
What tools are recommended for managing SECR data?
This site does not rank or recommend products.
The test for any tool is whether it produces every Schedule 7 row for your type of reporter, applies the conversion factors for the year the energy was used, keeps last year’s figures as disclosed, takes mileage claims for the transport-fuel limb, and leaves workings an auditor can follow.
A spreadsheet that does those things is enough for many companies.
Does EV charging count in a SECR report?
Yes, for an unquoted company or LLP it belongs in the purchased-electricity row.
Paragraph 20D(2) requires emissions from electricity purchased by the company for its own use, “including for the purposes of transport”, and the same words appear in the kWh figure in paragraph 20D(3).
Sources
Primary sources
Every figure, date and status on this page traces to the instrument’s owner.
Secondary commentary is never the source for a number.
- legislation.gov.ukSI 2008/410, Schedule 7
The specification any SECR tool is judged against.
- legislation.gov.ukSI 2008/410, Schedule 7 Part 7 — quoted companies
Worldwide figures, UK and offshore proportions, ¶18 and ¶18A comparatives.
- legislation.gov.ukSI 2008/410, Schedule 7 Part 7A — unquoted companies
UK figures, the transport-fuel limb, group exclusions (¶20E) and periods (¶¶20I–20J).
- legislation.gov.ukSI 2008/1911, regulation 12B
The LLP energy and carbon report.
- GOV.UK (DESNZ, Defra, BEIS)Environmental Reporting Guidelines, including SECR guidance (PDF, March 2019)
The minimum energy sources and the transport-fuel test.
- GOV.UK (DESNZ)Greenhouse gas reporting: conversion factors 2026
Published 11 June 2026; flat file corrected 31 July 2026.
- GOV.UK (DESNZ)2026 conversion factors methodology paper (PDF)
The activity-year rule.
- GOV.UK (DESNZ)2026 conversion factors: major changes report (PDF)
The electricity factor’s shorter data lag.
- GOV.UK (DESNZ)Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting regulations: evaluation
19,900 in scope; £7,100 mean ongoing cost; 94 hours of staff time.
- GOV.UK (DESNZ)2026 post-implementation review of the SECR regulations 2018
A standard template is a candidate for consultation, not a decision.
- legislation.gov.ukCompanies Act 2006, section 496
The auditor’s consistency opinion on the directors’ report — not assurance over the data.
- Financial Reporting CouncilAbout the FRC taxonomies
The UK digital reporting taxonomies incorporate SECR requirements.