Introduction
This blog is an introduction to the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service (SCIS). It outlines the purpose of the SCIS programme, including its foundational links to the Scottish Cities Alliance (SCA), updates from several SCA city members – Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Perth and Stirling – in addition to Fife, on their work with the SCIS programme so far.
What is the SCIS?
The SCIS is a climate change capacity-building programme for local authorities in Scotland. The programme combines a national digital platform – ClimateView – and a support service designed and delivered by partners at the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute and the Improvement Service.
The platform collates area-wide emissions data to build a baseline of emissions and calculate and visualise the emission reductions of the actions and projects local authorities are delivering. This service supports local authorities in building the skills, knowledge, and influence to use this data to enable planning, monitoring and delivery of climate action at the scale and pace required for achieving net zero targets.
While the SCIS formally launched in September 2024, it would not exist without the Scottish Cities Alliance. The graphic below highlights key milestones on the SCIS journey:
How does SCIS help?
Our recent in-person engagement with local authority colleagues highlighted that working in silos, behaviour change and budgetary constraints are the most common challenges faced by officers and elected members in delivering effective and efficient climate action.
The SCIS programme is founded on the belief that it is only through national consistency – across all 32 local authorities and Scottish Government – effective delivery prioritisation, internal and external collaboration across sectors and service areas, and transparency for local authority leaders and citizens alike, that efficient, just and equitable net zero action will be delivered across Scotland.
This is how SCIS helps local authorities in these four key areas:
✓ Consistency: A national approach with local implementation and common language supports dialogue and coordination at national, regional and local levels.
✓ Prioritisation: Local authorities and partners have more clarity on which area-wide interventions and emissions hotspots to focus on, and a shared understanding on how to scrutinise progress and secure investment.
✓ Collaboration: The platform and programme encourage collaboration internally with opportunities for different service areas to learn and contribute. External partners can also participate by providing data on their projects and actions. The SCIS also supports local authorities to share and learn from one another.
✓ Transparency: Leaders and elected members can access clear and current information about various plans whenever needed, while the local community and stakeholders can track progress once the dashboards are made public.
The graphic below highlights key outcomes from the programme in the short, medium and long-term:
Where are we now?
SCIS started its User Journey for local authority colleagues in September 2024 and have been building momentum ever since.
From September – February 2025, SCIS engaged 111 local authority officers and heads of service from all 32 local authorities in a series of workshops, platform trainings and drop-in sessions. In March of this year, we hosted three in-person roadshow events in Glasgow, Inverness and Edinburgh with 75 participants from 23 local authorities and two key delivery partners.
Our focus now is shifting to the creation and co-delivery of individual support plans for all Scottish local authorities, underpinned by the hiring of new Local Leads, meaning the programme now has six dedicated team members working to engage and support local authorities to deliver climate action.
The next section you can find out more about how the different Scottish cities are approaching this work on area-based climate action.
SCIS in Action
Dundee
Dundee was an early adopter of ClimateView in Scotland, having procured the tool for the council prior to the inception of SCIS. We have worked collaboratively with Dundee to learn from their experiences, and they have shared their learnings with other Councils at a User Group meeting.
Wishing to further align with SCIS and the national approach for Scotland, we worked with Dundee City Council to merge their existing ClimateView platform with the SCIS-run version. They plan to use ClimateView moving forward to track the actions in their Local Area Energy Plan (LAEP).
Aberdeen
Aberdeen City Council have also been working with ClimateView for some time. They are working with the company independently to log and help monitor, report and engage on Council emissions, interventions and outcomes through their award-winning Council Climate Change Plan, whilst participating in the SCIS-run ClimateView programme for area-wide emissions reductions.
The council plans to use their area-wide ClimateView board to help manage the RTPI award-winning Net Zero Aberdeen – the city’s collective pathway towards decarbonization led by the Aberdeen Net Zero and Adaptation Board.
Glasgow
As another early adopter, Glasgow City Council have been working in partnership with Mott MacDonald to use ClimateView to inform a new Integrated Net Zero Routemap (INZR).
As part of this work, Glasgow have explored city-scale modelling for different council interventions that can be applied across various Emissions Groups. In doing so, Glasgow City Council have successfully created two scenarios: the ‘Projected Pathway’ and the ‘Accelerated Pathway’.
Work is now being done, with support from SCIS, to socialise the work and pathways more widely and also ensure the ongoing management and tracking of council progress on climate action using ClimateView. This work is being introduced and discussed at the All Energy Exhibition and Conference on Wednesday 14th May 2025, as part of Glasgow City’s Climate Week.
Edinburgh
In November SCIS met with Elected Members to showcase the platform and answer questions, explaining how ClimateView can help members better understand the impact of City of Edinburgh Council’s actions to reduce citywide emissions.
SCIS has subsequently worked with members of the council’s Climate Change and Sustainability team to co-develop training on using the target balancing function of the platform and look forward to continuing this work over the coming months.
Fife
Fife Council have been pro-active in populating their dashboard and have invited SCIS to run a workshop at the forthcoming Fife COP (Conference of the Partners) in Dunfermline. We look forward to introducing attendees to ClimateView and highlighting its power in supporting effective, evidence-based decision making.
Stirling
Officers from Stirling’s Climate Change and Housing departments have been actively engaged with the training programme that SCIS has ran since September and are now planning to introduce key managers to the platform and the significant utility it provides.
Perth
Perth and Kinross Council Climate Change and Sustainable Development Officers have been keen supporters of the online and in-person training offered by SCIS.
At present, officers are working through their extensive Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan to ascertain which interventions are ready to be added to their ClimateView platform.
Inverness
In March 2025, Highland Council hosted the second of three SCIS roadshow events at Inverness Town House.
The day featured engaging presentations and interactive workshops delivered by both the SCIS and ClimateView teams, which were met with thoughtful questions and contributions from across the Council. Attendees also had valuable opportunities for networking and sharing ideas, with many leaving inspired to take further action and deepen their engagement with the ClimateView platform.
Conclusion
Just as the SCA understands the foundational importance of collaboration for economic growth across Scotland, the SCIS team understands that collaboration is essential for just and equitable climate action.
This blog has highlighted how SCA members are already engaging productively with SCIS to refine the planning and delivery of effective climate action. Moving forward, the SCIS and SCA will continue to work closely together to support the Scottish cities to deliver climate action with benefits for the economy and communities.
To find out more about the SCIS, you can visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn.
To find out more about the SCA, you can visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn.
