Geospatial Methods for Corporate GHG Accounting of Deforestation and Land Occupation

The document presents a methodology developed by the World Resources Institute and partners to standardize corporate GHG accounting for deforestation and land occupation. It addresses the inconsistency in current corporate reporting caused by the flexibility of existing frameworks like the GHG Protocol's Land Sector and Removals Guidance (LSRG). By using open, globally consistent spatial datasets, the methodology provides a common reference for emission factors across various crops and jurisdictions to improve transparency and comparability in scope 1 and scope 3 inventories.

• Existing standards for land use change emissions reporting allow for significant flexibility in data and method selection, which hinders the ability of companies and third parties to operationalize and compare metrics consistently.
• The proposed methodology provides a robust approach for calculating GHG emissions specifically from deforestation—defined as the loss of tall, woody vegetation with a tree canopy density of 10 percent or more—and associated soil carbon emissions resulting from agricultural production.
• Because the current guidebook focuses on deforestation and soil carbon, emissions estimates for crops that primarily replace nonforest ecosystems, such as rice, wheat, soybean, and maize, may be systematically underestimated.
• The methodology utilizes open-source methods and globally consistent datasets to establish LUC emission factors from forest to raw crops, aiming to harmonize corporate GHG inventories and provide a benchmark for future reporting.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Geospatial Methods for Corporate GHG Accounting of Deforestation and Land Occupation. https://www.wri.org/research/geospatial-methods-corporate-ghg-accounting-deforestation-and-land-occupation

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Geospatial Methods for Corporate GHG Accounting of Deforestation and Land Occupation. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/geospatial-methods-corporate-ghg-accounting-deforestation-and-land-occupation.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Geospatial Methods for Corporate GHG Accounting of Deforestation and Land Occupation |url=https://www.wri.org/research/geospatial-methods-corporate-ghg-accounting-deforestation-and-land-occupation |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendgeospatial, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Geospatial Methods for Corporate GHG Accounting of Deforestation and Land Occupation}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/geospatial-methods-corporate-ghg-accounting-deforestation-and-land-occupation}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }