Since its creation in 2002, the U.S. EPA Climate Leaders Program has assisted more than 150 companies to develop and implement long-term climate change strategies. This includes developing a GHG inventory, an inventory management plan, and a GHG reduction target. To replicate the U.S. EPA Climate Leaders Program's successful model in India, WRI, U.S. EPA and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Green Business Center (GBC) are partnering together to replicate the Climate Leaders program there.

In late February, WRI is publishing a policy brief called “Designing a U.S.

Last month, Chinese cement companies took the first steps towards measuring and managing CO2 emissions across the entire cement sector. Cement production is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions: five percent of the global total. And China's cement sector all by itself accounts for 45 percent of global cement production.

With “carbon footprint” increasingly becoming a popular buzzword within the corporate lexicon, companies are seeking more guidance on how to develop fuller and more accurate pictures of their greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in terms of supply chain, lifecycle, and product emissions. In recent months, many companies and stakeholders have been looking to the GHG Protocol to develop new guidelines on supply chain and lifecycle GHG accounting. In response to this demand, WRI and WBCSD designed a survey to assess the need for new guidelines and sent the survey to roughly 400 companies, experts, and other stakeholders.

Since the GHG Protocol first announced plans in February to upgrade the suite of 16 calculation tools available free of charge to the public, significant research has been conducted to determine how best to update the tools with the most recent information and how to make the format of the tools more user friendly. The GHG Protocol Initiative has also consistently received feedback regarding the need for an improved, more user-friendly interface for the tools, such as integrated desktop software or web applications that combine all of the tools and eliminate the need for duplicate entry of

At the end of each fiscal year, WRI designates ten outcomes across projects and programs as the ‘Top Ten Outcomes’ for a particular year. This year, the GHG Protocol’s work with The Climate Registry and the Mexico GHG Program was recognized as two of these top outcomes.

As cement production is responsible for five percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, it is considered a key target for climate change mitigation. China alone accounts for 45 percent of global cement manufacture and consumption

Operating under the theme, “Energy Conservation is GHG Emissions Reduction” (jie neng shi jian pai), the WRI-WBCSD-CBCSD China Energy Conservation and GHG Management Program saw significant progress since its launch in June. In September, the program partners held a cement sector working group meeting in Beijing to review feedback from Beijing Cement Company’s implementation of the WBCSD Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) tool.

WRI’s GHG Protocol Team is teaching “the new carbon math” – carbon accounting for GHG measurement and management – by developing e-learning curriculum based on GHG Protocol standards and tools. Under the ‘GHG Management Institute (www.ghginstitute.org),’ WRI will develop a series of online courses in partnership with Earth Council Geneva (ECG), the GHG Experts Network (GEN), and ClimateCheck. The institute aims to provide professional training on how to measure and manage GHG emissions. “The Institute’s philosophy is ‘if you cannot accurately measure GHG emissions, you cannot manage them’,” Michael Gillenwater, the Dean of the Institute and the Director of the GHG Experts Network, said in a press release.

"Climate change is no longer their problem. It’s now our problem,” said Fernando Henrique Cardoso, referring to climate change as a global issue that has surpassed the domain of industrialized countries.