In 1998, WRI and WBCSD formed a partnership to develop the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Corporate Standard, published in 2001 and revised in 2004, and the GHG Protocol for Project Accounting (Project Protocol), published in 2005. These standards provide two methods to account for emissions, respectively: entity-level GHG inventory accounting, which describes how to quantify and allocate an organization’s share of emissions to the atmosphere, and project-based GHG accounting, which describes how to evaluate emissions effects of a project relative to a counterfactual baseline scenario without the project.  

Status Update

June 1, 2023

GHG Protocol’s Land Sector and Removals Guidance builds on the Corporate Standard and Scope 3 Standard, explaining how companies should account for and report GHG emissions and removals from agricultural and forest management practices, land use change, bioenergy, carbon dioxide removal technologies, and related activities in GHG inventories. 

The Accountability Framework Initiative (AFI), in partnership with Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), recently released new guidance on how companies can align key land sector targets, accounting and disclosures. 

Cold-water laundry detergents, fuel-saving tires, energy-efficient ball bearings, emissions-saving data centers. Corporations are increasingly claiming that their goods and services reduce emissions. But there is a big problem: These avoided emissions claims are often unverifiable or inaccurate.

Banks are connected to every part of the economy through their investing and lending activities. That means they play a crucial role in financing the transition to a low-carbon economy. The financial sector is increasingly aware of the need to shift capital flows away from companies and activities that contribute to the climate problem and into climate solutions.

Fossil fuel companies hold vast oil, gas and coal reserves that help determine their market value. These reserves are also the basis to understanding the potential climate risks of burning these fuels. Yet not a single fossil fuel company in the world discloses potential emissions from their reserves – and that is a big problem.