Last week the annual WBCSD council meeting took place in Seoul, South Korea. This meeting included a constructive session for the Greenhouse Gas Management Working Group. Three strategic priorities for the coming years were agreed upon: 1) Business leading in carbon management, 2) Promoting harmonization in reporting programs, and 3) WRI partnership and collaboration. The first strategic priority will focus on engagement with investors and on CFO and investor relations, as well as on sharing GHG management best practices.

At a May 29 launch event in Beijing, WRI introduced the GHG Emissions calculation tool for Chinese Coal-Fired Power Plants to an audience of about 100 participants. The tool will enable Chinese power companies to establish a GHG emission inventory of its operations and prepare for GHG emissions management and reduction.

The GHG Protocol aims to ensure wide and effective use of its standards and support companies in the completion of accurate, relevant, complete, consistent and transparent GHG inventories. But the landscape for GHG calculation and verification procedures has been evolving quickly, prompting the need for a public survey to help identify the calculation priorities of our users, along with their perspectives on GHG inventory verification and training in accounting.

GHG accounting is not a static field and the GHG Protocol is constantly reviewing its publications to ensure they properly reflect the science on climate change and continue to define best practices for GHG accounting and management. One area the GHG Protocol monitors is the best available scientific evidence regarding the importance of individual GHGs, as evaluated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and as reflected in the guidelines of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for national GHG emissions reporting.

The GHG Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard will be used by CIRAIG and the Government of Quebec in the first st

WRI and ABPS (India) are holding a workshop in India on tracking greenhouse gas performance of mitigation actions and mitigation goals. The workshop will take place on March 7, 2012, in Delhi. The workshop will convene experts and stakeholders from governments, civil society, and the private sector to discuss issues, practices, and solutions related to the technical challenges of quantifying GHG reductions from mitigation actions and tracking national and sub-national performance toward GHG reduction goals.

Companies have repeatedly called for consistent and credible guidelines on how to account for the GHG emissions from agriculture within their corporate- or farm-level inventories. The GHG Protocol has just released a first draft of the ‘Agricultural Protocol’, aimed at providing exactly those guidelines. The Agricultural Protocol is a supplement to the Corporate Standard and new Scope 3 Standard, outlining how both producers and their supply chain partners (processors, food brand manufacturers, and food retailers, etc.) can measure the GHG impact of agricultural production.

GHG Protocol is proud to premiere its brand new animation video. The video tells the story of the two new standards through compelling animation.

On October 4th, 2011 business leaders from around the world will come together to see the new GHG Protocol standards unveiled for the first time. Simultaneous events in New York City and London will be first in a series of launch events around the world. Launch events are already planned for November 18th in Beijing and November 21st in Tokyo. These groundbreaking standards establish the first internationally agreed-upon approaches for measuring and reporting GHG emissions throughout product life cycles and corporate value chains.