2.2 Selecting a Base Year for the Government Operations Segment

Before starting to collect data, you need to select a base year for your Government Operations inventory, against which future inventories will be compared and measured. The base year for the Government Operations segment can be a calendar year, or a financial year to match with other reporting processes of council.

Often the year 1990 is mentioned as base year, and the Covenant of Mayors suggests that this be used if possible. However, the most important factor that will influence your choice of base year selection will be the availability of quality data. Some local governments only have data available for a recent year. If you have available earlier data please consider the strategic issue of being able to report significant actions from that earlier base year.

TIP:

If you have the baseline data available, you are advised to choose a base year before the start of major actions (or measures) were undertaken by your municipality to reduce emissions. The process is designed to measure the results of your climate change activities since your base year, allowing you to gain credit for these actions as part of achieving your climate protection goals. BUT you can only count measures that have been implemented by your local government after your inventory base year. The further back you go in setting your base year, the more already-started-or-completed measures that you can count towards achieving your reduction goal.

Many local governments choose to collate base year data for their financial year (for example this may be the 12 months from 1 July to 30 June). This can simplify data collection from internal sources rather than using a calendar year. This can also mean that climate protection targets and reporting become aligned with the local government’s normal reporting processes. National governments collect and report national data based on calendar years, as this is the requirement under the Kyoto Protocol reporting process. Some community data may only be available from national government sources for calendar year periods. However, in the longer term it makes little difference – as long as data is consistently for periods of 12 months.