Sustainability Dashboard Methodology

This guide details the greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory methodology used by the World Resources Institute (WRI), covering the reporting period from Fiscal Year 2010 to 2021. It outlines the organizational boundaries, operational scopes, and specific calculation methods for direct and indirect emissions in accordance with the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standards.

• WRI uses an operational control consolidation approach for its organizational boundary, including all material offices in its global network. The organization updated its base year to 2019 to better reflect its international offices under operational control and to support 2030 reduction targets.
• Scope 1 emissions include direct GHG emissions from owned or controlled sources, specifically diesel generators used for testing and outages at the US office, and office refrigerators. For refrigerators, WRI updated its methodology from 2019 onward to include all offices within its organizational boundary.
• Scope 2 emissions are reported using both location-based and market-based methods. The location-based method uses grid average emission factors, while the market-based method accounts for renewable energy certificates (RECs) purchased for US operations. For offices lacking electricity bills, WRI estimates consumption based on average energy intensity for the closest climate zone.
• Scope 3, Category 1 (Purchased Goods and Services) represents the majority of WRI's total emissions. WRI employs a spend-based approach using the US EPA's Environmentally Extended Input-Output (USEEIO) model, which assumes vendors are US-based. All international office data are excluded from this category due to data extraction challenges.
• Business travel emissions (Scope 3, Category 6) are calculated using a distance-based approach for air and rail travel. In 2019, WRI applied a 1.9x radiative forcing multiplier to air travel emissions to capture the increased warming impact in the upper atmosphere, which approximately doubled the magnitude of these emissions.
• Employee commuting (Scope 3, Category 7) is estimated via annual staff surveys. Since 2016, WRI has used a pattern-based survey format to capture multi-modal commutes rather than a single primary mode, providing more granular data on GHG impacts.
• WRI calculates emissions from its US-based endowment portfolio under Scope 3, Category 15, using a combination of GHG Protocol guidance and PCAF methodology. The calculations use fund-level and securities-level data for assets and public equity investments from 2019 onward.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Sustainability Dashboard Methodology. https://www.wri.org/sustainability-wri/dashboard/methodology

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Sustainability Dashboard Methodology. n.d. https://www.wri.org/sustainability-wri/dashboard/methodology.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Sustainability Dashboard Methodology |url=https://www.wri.org/sustainability-wri/dashboard/methodology |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendsustainability, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Sustainability Dashboard Methodology}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/sustainability-wri/dashboard/methodology}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }