SSE 

SSE scores full marks for its low-carbon transition plan and scenario analysis and is the highest scoring company assessed on management. Its transition plan is detailed, makes extensive use of appropriate scenarios and risks and opportunities are discussed in detail along with financial implications. The transition plan has concrete plans for annual renewables rollout, plants retrofitted with carbon capture and storage (CCS) or hydrogen and infrastructure for charging 10 million electric vehicles. Climate governance is embedded at the highest levels of the organisation.

SSE has a policy governing relations with trade associations and its memberships are consistent with strong climate action. The company explicitly supports a range of policies designed to reduce emissions and transform the electricity sector and other sectors.

SSE aims to support the UK’s transition to net-zero by 2050. SSE Transmission is the first electricity transmission company in the world to have set a 1.5°C scenario-aligned science-based target but the wider SSE group of companies has only committed to setting a 1.5°C-aligned science-based target. SSE itself proposes that the UK grid should aim for an emissions intensity of 50g CO2 per kilowatt hour (gCO2/kWh) by 2030, significantly more ambitious than its own 120gCO2/kwh target.

SSE has committed to only building new fossil fuel capacity where there is a clear route to decarbonisation. Its plans contain new gas plants to be commissioned in the early 2020s but these will only have carbon capture and storage (CCS) added by 2026 at the earliest and hydrogen burning capability by 2030 at the earliest. These technologies are unproven at scale and SSE aims to be the first electric utility in the world to develop large scale hydrogen fuelled plants. The current lack of economically and scientifically viable CCS and hydrogen plants are evidence that this strategy has some risks.

SSE has 2030 targets to reduce emissions intensity to 120gCO2/kWh, tripling renewables capacity, building grid infrastructure to accommodate 10 million electric vehicles and scope 3 use of sold products reduction of 50% by 2034. Although SSE is aiming for net-zero by 2050 it does not yet have a 1.5°C aligned net-zero target.

During the second half of the decade SSE is aiming to install at least 1 GW of renewables annually which will triple its renewables capacity; implement carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen capability on its new gas plants; and build new transmission capacity to support increased renewables capacity.

SSE is currently building more offshore wind than any other company globally and has a 40% stake in the world’s largest offshore windfarm. It is also building new gas capacity with the intention that it is CCS equipped by 2030 at the latest. It is the largest issuer of green bonds in the FTSE100.

SSE closed its last coal plant in 2020. Annual emissions reductions in recent years have been 8% per annum and dropped 14% in the year its last coal plant closed. This rate of reduction falls short of that required by its 1.5°C-aligned pathway. In 2021 SSE increased the ambition of its 2030 target.

SSE’s plans and actions are consistent. Its lack of long-term targets to support its net-zero ambition is the only area which shows some inconsistency. Its continuing development of gas capacity may conflict with its decarbonisation aims if CCS does not deliver at the scale and price needed.