Carbon Accounting That Helps Companies Shift to Clean Energy Faster

RMI argues that while attributional carbon accounting is useful for reporting, it fails to measure the actual climate impact of corporate actions. The briefing proposes the adoption of 'consequential assessment,' which models how specific actions—such as signing solar PPAs or investing in grid storage—change the overall emissions profile of the electricity grid. While more uncertain than inventory-based accounting, consequential assessment can guide companies toward more effective decarbonization strategies. The authors call for modernized datasets and standardized reporting frameworks to make this approach practical for global corporate use.

• Current corporate emissions reporting primarily relies on attributional (inventory-based) accounting, which allocates responsibility for emissions but does not measure the actual climate impact of corporate actions. Because it focuses on dividing total emissions within a boundary into shares, a change in attributional reporting does not necessarily correspond to real greenhouse gas abatement. For instance, while it can show a solar power purchase agreement (PPA) reduces reliance on other grid resources, it cannot determine if the PPA actually changed the grid mix.
• Consequential accounting differs from attributional accounting by estimating how total greenhouse gas emissions change directly and indirectly due to a company's actions, effectively comparing the real world to a counterfactual scenario where the action did not occur. This method can value actions that attributional inventories ignore, such as investments in stand-alone grid storage or investments in geographies outside of a company's own operations. Additionally, it serves as both a backward-looking measurement of impact and a forward-looking risk assessment tool.
• Consequential assessment can identify more effective decarbonization strategies by analyzing how actions change grid operations (e.g., power plants operating at higher capacity factors to meet new load) and grid structure (e.g., new solar capacity hastening the retirement of fossil assets). For example, in Pennsylvania, a solar PPA located in a coal-heavy region would likely have a greater carbon impact than one in a gas-rich region, even if both provide the same number of energy attribute certificates (EACs) under attributional accounting.
• Widespread adoption of consequential assessment requires overcoming several challenges, including the modernization of calculation methods and datasets, reaching a consensus on how to present impact claims to the public, and demonstrating feasibility to practitioners. Unlike attributional accounting, which uses real-time observations, consequential assessment relies on estimates and models of counterfactual worlds, introducing a different risk profile and higher uncertainty regarding future electricity system evolution.

APA

RMI (2025). Carbon Accounting That Helps Companies Shift to Clean Energy Faster. https://rmi.org/resources/carbon-accounting-that-helps-companies-shift-to-clean-energy-faster/

Chicago

RMI. Carbon Accounting That Helps Companies Shift to Clean Energy Faster. 2025. https://rmi.org/resources/carbon-accounting-that-helps-companies-shift-to-clean-energy-faster/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Carbon Accounting That Helps Companies Shift to Clean Energy Faster |date=22 April 2025 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/carbon-accounting-that-helps-companies-shift-to-clean-energy-faster/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2025carbon, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Carbon Accounting That Helps Companies Shift to Clean Energy Faster}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2025}, month = apr, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/carbon-accounting-that-helps-companies-shift-to-clean-energy-faster/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }