Scotland's Climate Change Plan – 2026-2040 - FSDA

2. Approach to Assessment of Impacts

2.1 Introduction

As a public body, the Scottish Government has a legal duty when creating new plans and policies to pay due regard to the Fairer Scotland Duty, Part 1 of the Equality Act 2010. This report assesses potential impacts on socio-economically disadvantaged groups arising from policies and proposals for each of the different sectors covered within the CCP:

• Business and Industrial Process,
• Energy Supply,
• Buildings (Public and Residential),
• Agriculture,
• Land Use Land Use Change and Reform (LULUCF),
• Transport (including International Aviation and Shipping), and
• Waste Management.

2.2 Approach

The approach to undertaking the assessment documented in this report has involved a three-stage process:

1. Key Issues and evidence review – an evidence base was collated which reflected publicly available data and Scottish Government reports, information provided by Scottish Government officers and research into relevant policy, legislation, proposal documents and discussion papers,

2. Assessment of potential impacts – informed by a consideration of the evidence assembled under 1; and

3. Recommendations and conclusions – including any recommendations for further considering impacts of the CCP on socio-economically disadvantaged groups.

2.3 Key Issues and Evidence

The Scottish Government conducted an initial review of the policies and proposals included within the CCP. The subsequent evidence review included a set of sectoral scoping documents completed by Scottish Government policy leads, provided on the available evidence and impacts identified to date relating to the policies and proposals within the CCP. The evidence was reviewed based on each climate change outcome contained within the plan and the policies and proposals which relate to each outcome.

The evidence reviews also included a review of relevant documentation related to the CCP, including strategies and statements detailing respective key targets for each sector.

Feedback was also received as a result of our public consultation, Parliamentary scrutiny and stakeholder engagement sessions held on the draft Climate Change Plan.

The draft Plan was laid in Parliament on 6 November 2025. This began a statutory scrutiny period of 120 days through which the Scottish Government sought the views of Parliament on the overall trajectory of decarbonisation, the package of policies and proposals being put forward, and the wider impacts of both of these.

The Scottish Government also conducted a 12-week public consultation and engaged with key stakeholders throughout the scrutiny period to seek wider views on the draft Plan and its associated documents. This generated over 500 responses from organisations and individuals, capturing views from a broad cross section of stakeholder organisations and members of the public. This activity was supplemented by 112 engagement events delivered by the Scottish Government’s partners, reaching more than 1,800 participants. Several of these events focused on targeted groups to ensure inclusion of perspectives from communities of interest with specific needs or backgrounds. The key themes and outputs of each of these strands of scrutiny have been considered in this impact assessment.

Throughout the scrutiny period the Scottish Government also engaged with a number of organisations with a particular interest in ensuring equality is a central in the overall Climate Change Plan. The Scottish Government engaged with these groups to gain feedback on what the Plan means to their members and the people that they represent, and to seek suggestions on how people with protected characteristics can be considered in the final Plan, including groups such as:

• Local Authorities,
• Regional Climate Action Hubs,
• Just Transition Groups such as NESTA and Poverty Alliance,
• Scottish Environment Protection Agency,
• NatureScot,
• SOLACE,
• COSLA, and
• Scotland’s Enterprise Agencies.

Climate change sectors have engaged with additional stakeholders on their policies and proposals.

2.4 Assessment of Potential Impacts

The assessment of impacts takes into account the information gathered through the above activities. A judgement is made as to how the policies and proposals in the CCP would contribute to reducing inequalities of outcome as a result of socio-economic disadvantage. The assessment identifies positive and negative impacts as well as instances where particular policies may have no (or a negligible) impact or that the nature of any impact is at this stage uncertain.

2.5 Conclusions and Recommendations

The final section of this report provides a concluding summary of the impacts on socio-economically disadvantaged groups with respect to the CCP. This includes the potential to reduce inequalities of outcome resulting from socio-economic disadvantage.