Carbon Reporting
Conducting a carbon assessment can be a valuable means to evaluate resource efficiency and productivity on farm, as much as understanding your farm's carbon footprint. A carbon assessment, or 'carbon audit', takes existing information and data about a farm's land, crops, livestock, energy and waste, and generates reports on carbon footprints as well as technical efficiency and productivity, helping to identify management areas where improvements can be made.
There are many carbon 'tools' or 'calculators' available, offering different features, and showing results at whole farm, enterprise and product level.
FAS can offer support to fund a carbon audit for your farm. Advice and funding is also available through the 'Preparing for Sustainable Farming' Scheme, which you can read about on the Rural Payments website.
General Information
Below we have a list of articles and publications on carbon audits, carbon audits for crofting businesses, Preparing for Sustainable Farming (PSF) and the Whole Farm Plan.
How to Get Prepared for a Carbon Audit
Crofting Businesses: Carbon Audits and Preparing For Sustainable Farming
How a carbon audit can help your farming business stay competitive
Preparing for Sustainable Farming (PSF) - An Overview
Agribusiness News July 2024 - Sector Focus: Whole Farm Plans
Doing your own Carbon Audit?
Whether you're a farmer, crofter or land manager, you can complete it yourself to meet the Whole Farm Plan requirements. No matter which tool you choose, the steps stay the same — and we've got a guide to help you get started.
Read our step-by-step guide here.
Farm Emissions Mitigation Tool
This tool will help you take the results of your carbon audit and quickly identify practical mitigation actions. With it you will find suggested actions for many different areas of your enterprise, as well as links straight to trusted guidance where you can find further information.
Please note: This tool has been designed to give you the lay of the land and make sure you have as much information as possible. Final decisions about what you do should be made in discussion with all stakeholders and with the support of an agricultural consultant.
If you have any feedback or suggestions for our this resource, please contact us at fas.hub@sac.co.uk
Case Studies
A group of farmers on the Isle of Arran, sometimes called ‘Scotland in miniature’ because of the range of farming it hosts, have begun to reduce their own carbon footprint to help create a blueprint for Scottish agriculture, and give themselves a commercial advantage in the process. Read more here >>
A baseline carbon audit was prepared for the farming enterprises at Hoddom and Kinmount Estate for the crop year 2023. Input and output data was provided by James Marshall, the farm manager from invoices and farm records; the carbon audit was prepared using Agrecalc. Read more about the case study here >>
Further Information
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