News
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.
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.
WRI’s GHG Protocol Director, Pankaj Bhatia, delivered a keynote address on the new GHG Protocol Supply Chain Standards at the Life Cycle Management (LCM) Conference 2011. The Life Cycle Management conference series is one of the world’s leading forums for environmental, economic and social sustainability.
The GHG Protocol is often approached by industry organizations and companies asking if we can partner with them to develop new GHG accounting guidance or tools, or whether we can endorse tools they have already developed. GHG Protocol has just released a draft policy for dealing with such requests. It outlines the development and review processes needed before tools can be co-branded with GHG Protocol and/or listed on our website.
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is looking for financial support to develop an online training course for both practitioners and trainers on the Corporate Standard. This will be a part of the Training and Capacity Building Initiative’s global, multi-year effort to scale-up the capacity of companies, governments and other organizations in developing countries to measure and manage greenhouse gas emissions. The Protocol seeks to develop an effective on-line course based on the Corporate Standard training materials that are already available but with additional web-based learning features.
The Greenhouse Gas Management Institute and the Environmental Careers Organization of Canada (ECO Canada) have announced a groundbreaking global personnel certification program for “carbon management” professionals. The Environmental Professional Certification on Greenhouse Gases – EP (GHG) – is the world’s first and only professional greenhouse gas-related certification accredited to ISO 17024.
The Sustainability Consortium members, comprised of leading global retailers, manufacturers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, have voted to adopt the GHG Protocol Product Standard.
For the first time, leaders within the hotel industry are collaborating to reach a consensus on a single methodology for calculating carbon footprints and consistent metrics for communicating emissions.
On July 8, 2011, through USAID’s Partnership for Climate Action (PCA), GHG Protocol held a training and pilot-testing workshop in the Guangdong Province of China on its new “Energy-GHG Conversion Tool”. Fifteen participants from five companies representing the power, semiconductor, glass manufacturing, paper, and textile industries attended.
On May 5, 2011, USAID’s US-China Partnership for Climate Action program partners, the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) and the World Resource Institute (WRI), signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Municipality Government of Xiaolan to launch the Xiaolan Low Carbon Initiative.
WRI is considering developing new guidance to help government agencies, civil society organizations, and others address the question, “What effect are policies expected to have on GHG emissions?”
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.
The Energy and Resources Institute – Business Council for Sustainable Development (TERI-BCSD), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), and the World Resources Institute (WRI) organized a stakeholder dialogue on Corporate GHG Accounting in India on February 2nd, 2011. The event was held on the sidelines of the World CEO Forum 2011 and was the first formal consultation of a project between TERI and WRI. The partnership aims to build capacity on corporate GHG accounting and gain an appreciation of the necessary steps required for developing a national GHG program.
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.
Please join us October 25th for the first GHG Protocol Product Program Workshop. The workshop brings together product measurement, reporting, and labeling programs from around the world to: Learn how the GHG Protocol Product Standard can benefit established and developing GHG programs; Discuss ways of promoting consistency and harmonization between programs; Identify areas where the GHG Protocol can provide value and support; and Provide an opportunity for discussion and peer learning on the challenges and opportunities in program development and implementation.
The first drafts of the GHG Protocol Product and Scope 3 Accounting and Reporting Standards were released for stakeholder review on November 11th 2009. The draft standards were developed over a nine month period between January and October 2009 through the work of 7 technical working groups comprised of more than 160 members, with strategic guidance provided by a 25 member steering committee.
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.
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.