Search Climate Insights Directory

A coalition of organisations argues that allowing carbon credits to meet scope 3 targets undermines the 'mitigation hierarchy' and corporate responsibility for value chain emissions. The letter warns that such flexibility, as suggested in VCMI's 'beta' guidance, would damage the credibility of climate standards and discourage fundamental business model changes necessary for deep reductions.

This guide outlines a comprehensive set of questions for institutional investors to use during due diligence of private equity managers. It focuses on five key areas: alignment with science-based climate targets (including phasing out fossil fuels by 2030), disclosure of fossil fuel exposure and emissions, the existence of portfolio-wide energy transition plans, the integration of climate and environmental justice, and transparency regarding political spending and climate lobbying.

The report explores automated emissions reduction (AER), a software-based technology that modulates the electricity use of internet-connected devices based on real-time grid emissions data. Based on a pilot in Chicago and a stakeholder workshop, the report finds that AER can reduce pollution by 5–40% for specific loads and lower customer acquisition costs for utility demand response programs. It proposes five priority near-term initiatives: institutional and residential pilots, device certification, integration into GHG accounting protocols, and the creation of open-source infrastructure.

The document advocates for product-level emissions reporting in the steel sector to enable purchasers to make informed decisions that drive decarbonization. It highlights the significant difference in energy and emissions intensity between ore-based steel (average energy intensity ~21.4 GJ/t) and scrap-based steel (~2.1 GJ/t). While increasing the share of scrap-based steel is a key lever, the document notes that recycled scrap is projected to meet only half of overall steel demand by 2050, necessitating technological improvements in ore-based production, such as green hydrogen-based direct reduction. RMI provides a Steel Emissions Reporting Guidance to help steelmakers report emissions by production process, allowing them to demonstrate both incremental reductions via scrap use and transformational reductions via process changes and zero-emissions electricity.

The document highlights a growing gap between Scotland's territorial emissions, which decreased by 13% between 1995 and 2004, and its consumer emissions, which grew by 11% in the same period. This trend indicates an increasing reliance on imported products and the offshoring of production emissions. Household consumption is the primary driver of the carbon footprint, with housing, transport, and food and drink as the largest contributors. The brief emphasizes that high-income households have significantly larger footprints and recommends that the Scottish government integrate consumer-based accounting into its national framework to ensure real emission reductions.

The document outlines a comprehensive leadership framework for companies to address the climate crisis. It emphasizes setting science-based net-zero targets aligned with a 1.5°C pathway, integrating climate goals into core business strategies, advocating for bold public policy, and maintaining transparent disclosure of progress and governance.

The document argues that current corporate GHG accounting often conflates physical inventories with market-based performance accounting, leading to opacity and lackluster climate finance. By analyzing the Paris Agreement's architecture—which strictly separates national physical inventories from market-based 'emissions balances'—the authors propose a more robust corporate framework. Key recommendations include adopting dual-ledger reporting, establishing governance bodies for accreditation of market instruments, and implementing standardized biennial reporting to track annual progress toward net-zero targets rather than focusing solely on a single target year.

The We Mean Business Coalition identifies critical failures in the ESG data ecosystem, noting that historical emissions data is often inadequate for meaningful analysis due to blatant errors and inconsistent reporting. The report categorizes these issues into company-level reporting failures, data provider extraction errors, and structural gaps such as the lack of central repositories and misalignment between GHG and financial reporting boundaries. To resolve these, the authors advocate for the global adoption of ISSB standards, mandatory XBRL tagging, and the alignment of GHG operational boundaries with financial reporting standards.

The document outlines the Paris Rulebook's efforts to address transparency gaps in initial NDCs by establishing a detailed list of information required for clarity, transparency, and understanding (CTU). It highlights the adoption of accounting guidance at COP24 to ensure consistent tracking of anthropogenic emissions and removals, which is essential for assessing progress and managing Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs).

The document details the requirements for Parties to the Paris Agreement regarding the communication and accounting of their NDCs. It outlines the seven elements of CTU guidance adopted in 2018, the mandatory accounting standards based on IPCC methodologies, and the integration of these elements into the broader Paris Agreement cycle, including the Enhanced Transparency Framework and the Global Stocktake.

The document introduces a guide for non-technical staff at small and medium-sized office-based organizations to manage their carbon footprint. It outlines a process for gaining organizational support, calculating emissions, and setting reduction targets, supported by four customizable calculation tools for direct emissions (heating and transport), indirect emissions (electricity), business travel, and employee commuting. The guidance is aligned with the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard.

The report outlines the outcomes of a March 2010 workshop convened by the World Resources Institute, where experts from over ten GHG inventory programs discussed the evolution of corporate GHG accounting. It identifies a shift toward value-chain management and the increasing role of climate policy in developing countries as drivers for expanding accounting capacity. The document concludes that future efforts must focus on increasing the scale of accounting capacity, transitioning from measurement to management, and improving coordination between programs.

The analysis indicates that India's 2030 mitigation goal is achievable through the effective implementation of five specific policies—the PAT scheme, Dedicated Freight Corridor, clean environment cess, 2022 renewable power targets, and the Energy Conservation Building Code—while maintaining GDP growth. However, the paper notes a need for increased transparency in greenhouse gas accounting and suggests that further emissions intensity reductions are possible by addressing institutional, financial, and technological barriers.

The paper examines the value of temporary carbon storage and how it informs policy design for greenhouse gas accounting and biological offsets, specifically using social cost of carbon estimates to determine equivalence ratios between permanent and temporary offsets.

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.

The document outlines the necessity of establishing credible platforms for accounting and reporting corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to address climate change. It identifies common challenges in program design—including objective setting, geographic scope, reporting specifications, and quality assurance—and offers guidance based on the experience of the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) to help stakeholders develop customized GHG programs.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) employs a comprehensive greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting methodology covering Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. The inventory uses an operational control consolidation approach and has established 2019 as its base year for 2030 reduction targets. Scope 1 includes direct emissions from diesel generators and office refrigerators. Scope 2 utilizes both location-based and market-based methods for purchased electricity, incorporating renewable energy certificates for US operations. Scope 3 is the most extensive, covering purchased goods and services (Category 1) via a spend-based USEEIO model, fuel- and energy-related activities (Category 3), waste (Category 5), business travel (Category 6), employee commuting (Category 7), and endowment investments (Category 15). The methodology emphasizes the use of regional emission factors and annual staff surveys to estimate impacts across WRI's global network.

The document assesses the application of the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard to the agricultural sector, identifying that while mechanical emissions are easy to track, non-mechanical sources like soils and livestock present significant accounting challenges due to variability and long timescales.

The guidelines serve as a supplement to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol for Project Accounting, offering a program-neutral framework for project developers and program designers to account for GHG reductions and derive marginal grid emission factors.

The document argues that the Conference of the Parties (COP) must establish consistent, transparent, and accurate accounting rules to maintain the integrity of post-2012 climate agreements. It specifically recommends that the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) develop measurement, reporting, and verification guidelines based on existing National Communications guidelines and the Copenhagen Accord. To clarify Annex I pledges, the paper suggests using a supplemental form to gather detailed information on greenhouse gas coverage, sectors, land use (LULUCF), offsets, and surplus allowances from the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period. The author asserts that these harmonized rules are essential for tracking aggregate performance against global temperature targets and for comparing emissions reductions across parties.