On October 4th the GHG Protocol launched the new Product Life Cycle and Corporate Value Chain Standards with events in New York City and London. The global press launch of the Standards in New York City occurred in conjunction with WRI’s Corporate Consultative Group (CCG) fall meeting. CCG is a group of 150-200 representatives of large corporations, mainly sustainability managers, who are coming to engage with WRI experts – and with each other – to access environmental intelligence in order to protect and grow shareholder value and steer business to better protect the environment.

On the evening of April 14th, WRI filled a role not normally reserved for environmental think tanks: VIP guest at a high-profile New York restaurant opening. Otarian, now open in New York City’s West Village, is a new boutique fast-casual restaurant chain based on the principles of sustainability and vegetarianism. Otarian is also the first global restaurant chain to track the carbon footprint of all of its menu items.

A new journal, Greenhouse Gas Measurement & Management, focuses on the infrastructure to support future GHG mitigation policies by providing a scholarly forum for both academic researchers and GHG professionals.

The Mexico GHG Program officially transitioned from a pilot project to a permanent program on October 2, marking a significant milestone for the program partners and 30 par

Hurricane Sandy was a massive and deadly storm, extending more than 1,000 miles, bringing huge waves and more than 13 feet of water to parts of New York City. In Manhattan, floods swept away cars and overflowed subway stations.

Project developers are concerned that high transaction costs and uncertainty around the acceptance of projects by governing bodies is limiting the number of projects being developed in Africa and around the world.

ICT companies and their customers will soon have common approaches and methodologies to calculate the carbon footprints of ICT products and services thanks to industry guidance due to be published at the end of the year.

As corporate leaders track and set more ambitious targets for reducing GHG emissions—and take a broader look at Scope 3 emissions—many are looking for a way to find new opportunities to collaborate (internally and externally). Starting this month, WRI is inviting companies to road test a new collaboration tool developed as part of the Next Practice Collaborative.

The Philippines Greenhouse Gas Accounting and Reporting Program (PhilGARP) was officially launched at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Manila on November 30, 2006.

EPA is creating a nationwide database of greenhouse gas emissions, an important first step on the path to reducing U.S. emissions. The plan would require 13,000 facilities to report their emissions. 

By Stephen Russell

New developments are driving the need for GHG accounting programs around the world to evolve more efficiently, more effectively, and at a greater scale. On the business side, there is a trend toward managing GHG emissions along the value chain. Companies are looking up and down the supply chain and throughout the product life-cycle for GHG management opportunities. As climate policy becomes a reality in industrialized and developing countries around the world, many emerging economies are adopting voluntary national GHG mitigation targets and identifying the policies and measures to best achieve them. These trends point to the need for greatly enhanced GHG accounting capacity and tools at a global scale to ensure that mitigation actions can be measurable, reportable and verifiable. 

O programa GHG Protocol do World Resources Institute – WRI pretende contribuir com o esforço coletivo mundial em busca de uma economia resiliente e do equilíbrio climático do planeta. Para isso, desenvolve ferramentas de apoio à contabilização e reporte de emissões de GEE, como o GHG Protocol para empresas, reconhecido e adotado mundialmente. 

Accounting for 89 percent of end-use electricity consumption, buildings are the focus of a new ‘Carbon Audit’ campaign aimed to tackle climate change in Hong Kong. On July 24, Hong Kong’s ‘Guidelines to Account for and Report on Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Removals for buildings (Commercial, Residential or Institutional Purpose) in Hong Kong’ based on the WRI-WBCSD GHG Protocol was launched in a ceremony attended by 37 major organizations, including all of Hong Kong’s major property developers, as well as media.

Today the GHG Protocol launches two new global greenhouse gas accounting standards - for corporate value chains (scope 3) and product life cycle emissions. Janet Ranganathan, WRI’s Vice-president for Science & Research, and Pankaj Bhatia, WRI’s Greenhouse Gas Protocol Director since 2004, describe the 12-year program’s critical role in business and government efforts to address climate impacts.

GHG Protocol has published a draft royalty-free Licensing Policy and plans to integrate this agreement into all online calculation tools and standards in the New Year. GHG Protocol website visitors will be asked to sign-in before downloading all online tools and standards and will then be asked to accept or decline the license presented before them. Users will not be asked to accept the license every time they download tools and standards; a one-time review of the license is all that is required.

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, 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.

To garner feedback on the issues and options related to green power accounting, the GHG Protocol team held discussion-based workshops over the past few months tailored to US and European audiences specifically. The DC workshop on December 13th, 2010 centered around accounting practices relating to renewable energy credits (RECs), best practices for assuring clear emission attribute ownership, and how an emissions cap on the power sector impacts voluntary green power purchases.