Getting Every Ton of Emissions Right

The paper addresses widespread errors in the emission factors used to account for indirect greenhouse gas emissions from purchased electricity at the organizational level in China. It argues that inappropriate factors lead to inaccurate accounting and distorted signals for GHG mitigation decisions, noting that incorrect factors used in 2010 could have resulted in over-estimating emissions by up to 49 percent. To resolve this, the document provides detailed calculation processes and default emission factors for regional grids in China, aligned with the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard and ISO 14064-1:2006.

• The use of incorrect emission factors for purchased electricity in China can lead to significant inaccuracies; specifically, using the wrong factors for 2010 data could result in an over-estimation of greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 49 percent.
• Inconsistent or inappropriate emission factors, even when used uniformly across companies in a country, produce distorted signals that mislead analysis and decision-making regarding greenhouse gas mitigation.
• The paper establishes guidelines for calculating emission factors for purchased electricity based on the ISO 14064-1:2006 and the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (revised edition).

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Getting Every Ton of Emissions Right. https://www.wri.org/research/getting-every-ton-emissions-right

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Getting Every Ton of Emissions Right. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/getting-every-ton-emissions-right.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Getting Every Ton of Emissions Right |url=https://www.wri.org/research/getting-every-ton-emissions-right |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendgetting, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Getting Every Ton of Emissions Right}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/getting-every-ton-emissions-right}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }