On May 23, in São Paulo, WRI, ICLEI, C40, USP-IEE, and EMBARQ Brazil jointly brought together more than 200 Brazilian city officials and experts to discuss how to use the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GPC) to measure and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cities. 

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.

The Scope 2 Accounting Guidance is entering its final stage of development. The document will clarify how to account for and report GHG emissions from electricity purchase and use. It will also address the role of utility emission factors, power purchase agreements (PPAs), and tracking instruments such as renewable energy certificates (RECs) and Guarantees of Origin (GOs). A final public comment period for the Guidance will begin in September 2013 with final publication scheduled for January 2014. 

During the informal sessions of the U.N.’s Rio+20 conference on sustainable development last week, Rio de Janeiro city officials and the World Bank jointly launched a very timely project: the Rio Low-Carbon City Program. 

The GHG Protocol periodically assesses the need for GHG accounting guidance within different business sectors and organizational types. We are currently scoping the GHG accounting needs associated with film and television production activities internationally, and are seeking stakeholders expert in this field to help illuminate the issues relating to GHG emission sources and accounting questions. Some of these potential issues include:

On July 10, WRI launched the Beta version of its new Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, or CAIT 2.0.

As the country reflects on the anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent bailouts of major banks, pressure is mounting for financial institutions and companies to more fully disclose their investment risks, especially those risks from climate change.

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.