Under the carbon reduction commitment, local authorities will be held legally and financially responsible for state funded schools within their geographical area. As such, the CRC aims to increase energy management practice between local authorities and the schools that fall under their umbrella.

Local authorities will be incentivised to assist schools with resources and energy management advice so as to ensure lower carbon emissions and a higher place in the CRC league table. In doing so, the local authority will benefit from better corporate social responsibility and reduced financial impact of the CRC, with the potential to receive substantial funding from bonus payments when allowances are recycled.

Schools will be required to provide their local authority with the necessary energy and emissions data for the carbon reduction commitment. While there will be an administrative cost and time associated with these tasks, it should be significantly outweighed by the benefits of increased energy efficiency.

In receiving energy management advice from the local authorities, schools should be able to significantly reduce energy consumption and costs. In most circumstances, it is considered likely that schools should be able to reduce energy consumption by over 20% by adopting no-cost or low-cost measures to reduce energy consumption.