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

2. Approach to assessment of impacts

2.1 Introduction

The Scottish Government has a legal duty when creating new plans, strategies or policies to undertake an ICIA when those plans, strategies or policies are likely to significantly affect island communities differently from other communities (including other island communities). This report assesses potential impacts on island communities arising from policies and proposals for each of the different sectors covered within the CCP:

• Business and Industrial Process,
• Energy Supply,
• Residential and Public (in relation to buildings in those sectors)
• Agriculture,
• Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF),
• Transport (including International Aviation and Shipping), and
• Waste Management.

2.2 Approach

2.2.1 Key issues and evidence

In addition to a review of packages of policies included within the draft CCP, the evidence review covered the following:

• A set of proformas completed by sector leads within the Scottish Government on the available evidence and impacts identified to date relating to the policies and proposals within the draft CCP,
• Compiling a document covering the key issues and evidence informing the ICIA which was reviewed by sector leads within Scottish Government,
• A review of all relevant documentation related to the CCP, including strategies and statements detailing key targets for each sector and Scottish Government’s Research into Public Attitudes to climate change policy/green recovery and consultation with island communities, and
• Feedback received as a result of our public consultation, parliamentary scrutiny, and stakeholder engagement on the draft CCP.

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 Governments 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 vast 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:

• Scottish Rural Action
• Highland and Islands Enterprise
• Rural Climate Action Hubs
• Rural and Islands Local Authorities

2.2.2 Assessment of potential impacts

The assessment of impacts on island communities was undertaken with reference to the information outlined in the section above. A judgement was made as to how the policies and proposals within the plan would contribute to the realisation of effects for island communities as defined within the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018. 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.

2.2.3 Conclusions and recommendations

The final section of this report sets out conclusions on the impacts on island communities with respect to each sector and recommendations for mitigation measures that could alleviate negative impacts as well as opportunities for improving policies and proposals to increase the potential for positive impacts on island communities.