SECR Has Proven Its Value. The Next Challenge Is Turning Data Into Decisions.

The UK Government’s post-implementation review of Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) was published at the end of May and has delivered a clear verdict: the framework is working.

Introduced in 2019, SECR was designed to improve transparency around organisational energy use and carbon emissions, helping businesses understand their environmental impact while encouraging greater energy efficiency. The Government’s review found that it has largely achieved those objectives, improving disclosure, increasing internal awareness and contributing to measurable reductions in energy consumption.

For CEOs and senior decision-makers, however, the most important takeaway isn’t that SECR is here to stay. It’s that the role of energy and carbon reporting is evolving.

The question is no longer whether organisations should comply with SECR. It’s whether they are extracting meaningful business value from it.

Why has the Government reviewed SECR?

As part of standard regulatory practice, the Government undertook a post-implementation review to assess whether SECR was delivering against its original objectives and whether the benefits justified the costs.

The review examined whether SECR had:

• Improved transparency and consistency in energy and carbon reporting
• Increased awareness and accountability within organisations
• Driven energy efficiency and emissions reductions
• Remained fit for purpose within an increasingly complex sustainability reporting landscape

The findings were positive, however, not without important caveats. The review concluded that SECR has mainly met its objectives and delivered measurable benefits, but also highlighted attribution challenges, uneven compliance, reporting duplication and the need for better alignment with other frameworks.

The review found that SECR has contributed to:

• 4.5% reductions in electricity and gas consumption in 2020
• 6.2% reductions in 2021
• £5.1 billion of net social value
• A benefit-cost ratio of 2.72:1, meaning every £1 invested in compliance generated £2.72 of societal benefit

Perhaps most importantly, 79% of organisations reported disclosing information they otherwise would not have published, while almost half reported increased internal awareness of energy use and emissions.

In short, SECR is doing what it was designed to do.

The benefit of doing SECR well

One of the most important findings from the review is that the value of SECR isn’t created by reporting alone. Too often, SECR is viewed as a year-end compliance exercise. But organisations that generate the greatest value from SECR use it as a management tool.

Done well, SECR can help organisations:

Identify energy and cost-saving opportunities

The Government’s evaluation estimates that SECR contributed to average annual energy savings of approximately 8 TWh between 2020 and 2025.

For individual organisations, energy data often reveals operational inefficiencies that would otherwise remain hidden.

Whether it’s underperforming assets, inefficient building operations or opportunities for targeted investment, robust reporting creates visibility that can unlock both carbon and cost reductions.

Improve internal accountability

Nearly half of businesses surveyed reported increased awareness of energy use and emissions as a result of SECR. Many organisations still struggle to embed sustainability into operational decision-making because performance data is fragmented or inaccessible. SECR creates a common set of metrics that can be monitored, discussed and challenged at leadership level.

Support better business decisions

The most mature organisations are using SECR data well beyond annual reporting.

Energy and emissions data increasingly influence:

• Capital investment decisions
• Property and asset strategies
• Procurement and supplier engagement
• Risk management
• Operational efficiency programmes
• Net Zero transition planning

In practice, the value isn’t in the disclosure itself. It’s in turning that data into actionable business insight.

The challenge facing organisations

While the review confirms that SECR is delivering value, it also highlights a wider challenge for organisations: energy and carbon reporting is becoming more connected, more scrutinised and more data-dependent.

The sustainability reporting landscape has changed significantly since SECR was introduced in 2019. Many organisations are now responding to multiple requirements and information requests, including SECR, ESOS, CDP, UK SRS, customer questionnaires, investor expectations and wider supply chain reporting.

This creates three practical challenges for leadership teams.

Reporting duplication

Organisations are often collecting similar energy and emissions information several times for different reporting purposes. This increases administrative burden, creates inefficiencies and can lead to reporting fatigue across finance, sustainability and operational teams.

The opportunity is to use SECR as part of a more integrated reporting process, rather than treating it as a standalone year-end disclosure.

Data consistency

Different frameworks may require different boundaries, methodologies, assumptions or levels of disclosure. Without clear ownership and governance, organisations can end up reporting different numbers across different documents.

That creates credibility risks, particularly where the same energy and emissions data is being used in the annual report, ESOS submissions, customer responses, investor materials or future climate-related disclosures.

Evidence quality

As sustainability information becomes more visible to boards, investors, customers, regulators and auditors, expectations around evidence quality continue to increase.

The challenge is no longer simply producing the data. Organisations need to show that the data is complete, accurate, traceable and capable of being challenged. That means having clear reporting boundaries, documented methodologies, named data owners, review controls and a reliable evidence trail.

For leadership teams, this is where SECR becomes more than a compliance exercise. Done well, it can provide a foundation for better reporting, stronger internal controls and more decision-useful energy and carbon data.

What to expect going forward

The review points to a clear direction of travel: greater integration across the reporting landscape and higher expectations on data quality.

UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (UK SRS)

The UK has now finalised UK SRS S1 and UK SRS S2, which are available for voluntary use. The next question is how these standards may be applied through regulation or listing rules.

For organisations already reporting under SECR, this matters because energy and carbon data may increasingly need to connect with governance, strategy, risk management, transition planning and wider climate-related disclosures.

ESOS

There remains significant overlap between SECR and the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS). While SECR focuses on annual disclosure and ESOS focuses on periodic energy audits and savings opportunities, both rely on many of the same underlying data sets. The direction of travel is clearly towards greater alignment.

However, organisations must still ensure consistency between:

• Energy consumption data
• Reporting methodologies
• Organisational boundaries
• Identified energy-saving opportunities

Those that integrate SECR and ESOS processes effectively can reduce duplication while generating more strategic value from both.

Alongside this, the review highlights the need for:

• Simplification to reduce administrative burden
• Improved data quality and consistency
• Greater alignment across multiple reporting requirements
• Better integration of sustainability reporting frameworks

From compliance to competitive advantage

The Government’s review confirms that SECR has successfully established a foundation for energy and carbon reporting across UK business. But compliance alone is no longer enough. As reporting requirements evolve and stakeholder expectations increase, the organisations that gain the greatest advantage will be those that treat energy and carbon data as a strategic asset rather than a regulatory obligation.

The focus is shifting from: “Have we reported?” To: “Can we trust the data, align it across frameworks, and use it to make better decisions?”

Those organisations that invest now in data quality, governance and reporting integration will be better positioned to respond to future requirements, reduce reporting burdens and identify opportunities for efficiency, resilience and growth.

How Acclaro can help

For many organisations, the challenge is no longer collecting energy and carbon data, it’s ensuring that energy and carbon data is accurate, consistent, controlled and useful for decision-making.

Acclaro helps organisations strengthen the quality of their sustainability reporting by reviewing reporting boundaries, methodologies, evidence trails, data controls and consistency across SECR, ESOS, CDP, UK SRS and wider disclosure requirements.

This helps finance, sustainability and operational teams reduce duplication, improve confidence in reported numbers and use energy and carbon data to support better business decisions.

If you’d like to discuss how your organisation can improve reporting efficiency, strengthen data quality or prepare for the next generation of sustainability reporting requirements, then speak to a member of our team.