SECR reporting software — judged against the statute
No platform is “SECR-compliant”: the duty falls on directors and is discharged in the directors’ report. What a tool can do is produce the five artefacts Schedule 7 requires. This page sets out those five, the one decision no software can make for you, and the three things SECR never asks for that vendors routinely sell against.
Five artefacts — the only specification that matters
Every SECR software evaluation should start here. If a platform cannot produce all five from your own data, it is a carbon accounting tool that stops short of the disclosure.
Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reportingis a directors’ report duty under Schedule 7 of the Large and Medium-sized Companies and Groups (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008, as amended in 2018. It does not certify software and it does not audit systems. It requires five things to appear in a report, with the prior year’s figures alongside them after the first year 348.
- UK energy use, in kWhArtefact 1
- Annual energy consumed in the UK from electricity, gas and transport fuel. The figure a platform is most likely to get right, and the one that most often arrives incomplete because grey-fleet mileage and tenanted sites sit outside the meter data.
- Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissionsArtefact 2
- Tonnes of CO2e from the energy above, calculated with the published UK conversion factors for the reporting year. Check which factor set a tool applies and whether it restates prior years when factors change — restatement is a judgement, not an automatic correction.
- At least one intensity ratioArtefact 3
- One ratio expressing annual emissions against a quantifiable factor associated with the company's activities. Not prescribed, not standardised, and the subject of section 02 below.
- Energy efficiency action narrativeArtefact 4
- A description of the principal measures taken during the year to increase energy efficiency. Note the asymmetry: there is no duty to state a methodology for this narrative, unlike the figures — so it is prose a person writes, not output a platform generates.
- Methodology statementArtefact 5
- The methodologies used to calculate the disclosed figures. A platform that cannot export what it did — factor set, boundary, estimation approach — leaves the director signing a statement they cannot evidence.
The intensity ratio is yours to choose, and that is the whole problem
This is where SECR software quietly decides something the regulations left to the company — and where the comparability the regime was built for gets lost.
Schedule 7 paragraphs 17 and 20G are textually identical and say 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”. Five things follow from the words that are absent: there is no prescribed ratio, no prescribed denominator, only one is required, it is an emissions ratio and not an energy one, and nothing obliges you to keep the same ratio next year315. Revenue, floor area, headcount and tonnes of product all satisfy it. The 2019 Environmental Reporting Guidelines put it plainly: organisations are free to choose their own intensity ratio.
A platform that ships one default ratio has made that choice for you. That is convenient and it is not neutral — and it is the mechanism behind the finding in DESNZ’s own 2026 Post-Implementation Review, which names comparability as hampered by heterogeneous intensity metrics and inconsistent placement and formatting 201. The review recommends retaining SECR with amendments and lists a standardised disclosure template among five candidate areas for a planned consultation. None of the five is decided and the consultation has not opened, so treat any tool marketing itself against “the coming SECR template” with care.
Three things SECR never asks for
Each is a legitimate capability and none of them is a SECR requirement. Buy them for where you are going, not for this duty.
The genuinely useful buying question is the opposite one: where are you going after SECR? An organisation heading into UK SRS S2 needs value-chain data and an audit trail it does not need today, and an organisation that also qualifies for ESOS is collecting overlapping energy data on a different four-year clock. Buying only for SECR tends to mean buying twice.
How to test a platform in an afternoon
Six questions that separate a reporting tool from a dashboard. None of them requires a demo environment.
- Can it export the directors' report block?Test 1
- Not a dashboard, not a PDF of charts — the five artefacts as text and figures you can place in a directors' report, with comparatives. Ask to see one produced from real data rather than a sample.
- Which conversion factor set, and can it restate?Test 2
- Factors are published annually. Ask which year's set applies to which reporting period, and what the tool does to prior-year figures when factors move.
- How does it handle the group boundary?Test 3
- SECR follows the group structure, and boundary questions are among the five areas DESNZ named for possible future guidance. A tool that cannot model subsidiaries and partial-year acquisitions will be worked around in a spreadsheet.
- Does it carry more than one intensity ratio?Test 4
- See section 02. One default ratio is a decision the regulations left to you.
- What does the methodology export look like?Test 5
- The director signs the methodology statement. If the platform cannot produce factor set, boundary and estimation approach in a form a person can read, that statement is unevidenced.
- Where does it leave you for the next regime?Test 6
- Scope 3 depth and audit trail are not SECR requirements, but they are the difference between one purchase and two if UK SRS S2 or CSRD is in view.
Platform-by-platform assessments live on the carbon reporting software comparison and its individual pages — among them Greenly, Normative, Sweep, Watershed and Cority. This page deliberately does not re-score them: the five artefacts above are the SECR lens to read those assessments through, and no vendor is endorsed here.
For the duty itself rather than the tooling, the SECR requirements page carries who must report and the exemptions, and the SECR reporting guidecovers method. Whether software is worth buying at all is often settled by size: the unquoted duty is drafted as an exemption — a non-parent unquoted company is exempt where it meets two or more of turnover not more than £36 million, balance sheet total not more than £18 million and not more than 250 employees10 — and a company using 40,000 kWh or less in the UK over the period may say so instead of making the full disclosures347.
Scale is the argument for tooling. DESNZ’s independent evaluation measured 19,900 organisations in scope — 76% more than the 2018 impact assessment forecast — with mean ongoing compliance cost of £7,100 a year, 94 hours of internal staff time, and suspected non-compliance of 14–23% concentrated among private companies and LLPs200. Software is one answer to those 94 hours. It is not the only one, and on a small single-site estate it is rarely the cheapest.
SECR reporting software — common questions
The questions this page is most often found by, answered against the regulations.
What software supports SECR data reporting?
Any platform that can produce five things from your own data: a UK energy figure in kWh, Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions in tonnes of CO2e, at least one emissions intensity ratio, a narrative of the energy efficiency actions taken in the year, and a statement of the methodologies used.
Most carbon accounting platforms sold in the UK can produce the first two.
Fewer produce a directors'-report-ready block covering all five, and none of them can choose your intensity ratio for you, because the regulations do not prescribe one.
Is any software actually 'SECR-compliant'?
No software is compliant or non-compliant — companies are.
SECR duties fall on directors and are discharged in the directors' report, not in a platform.
A tool can make compliance easier or harder, and a sensible claim is that it produces SECR-ready output.
Treat 'SECR-compliant software' as marketing language and test the output against Schedule 7 instead: does it give you the kWh figure, the Scope 1 and 2 emissions, at least one ratio, the efficiency narrative and the methodology statement, with the prior-year comparatives?
Does SECR software need to calculate Scope 3 emissions?
Not for SECR.
SECR requires Scope 1 and Scope 2, and the UK energy use underlying them.
Scope 3 is voluntary under SECR.
It matters for other regimes — UK SRS S2 and CSRD both reach into the value chain — so a platform with Scope 3 capability may be the right buy for where you are heading, but it is not a SECR requirement and a tool should not be marked down for SECR purposes for lacking it.
What intensity ratio should the software report?
Whichever one you choose and can defend.
Schedule 7 paragraphs 17 and 20G require 'at least one ratio which expresses the company's annual emissions in relation to a quantifiable factor associated with the company's activities'.
There is no prescribed ratio, no prescribed denominator, only one is required, it is an emissions ratio rather than an energy one, and there is no statutory obligation to keep the same ratio from year to year.
Revenue, floor area, headcount and tonnes of product all satisfy it.
This is the one decision a platform's defaults should not make silently on your behalf.
Do small companies need SECR software at all?
Many qualifying organisations do not.
The unquoted duty is drafted as an exemption: a non-parent unquoted company is exempt where it meets two or more of turnover not more than £36 million, balance sheet total not more than £18 million, and not more than 250 employees.
Separately, a company whose UK energy use is 40,000 kWh or less over the reporting period may state that instead of the full disclosures.
Where an organisation has a handful of meters and one fleet, a spreadsheet plus the published conversion factors does the job; software earns its cost on multi-site estates, complex group boundaries and scattered data.
Related guides & references
Carbon reporting software — 17 UK platforms scored
The full comparison, including UK SRS S2 readiness, Scope 3 depth and audit trail
SECR requirements — regulations, disclosures, thresholds
Who must report, what must be disclosed, and the exemptions
SECR report template — model directors' report wording
What the finished disclosure block looks like on the page
SECR guidance — the specialist reference
Deadlines, eligibility and FAQs, on the cluster site that owns the SECR regime lane