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.

A new collaboration launches to develop standards for measuring and managing GHG emissions throughout the product life cycle and across the entire corporate value chain. The group is the GHG Protocol’s Product and Supply Chain Initiative, convened under the GHG Protocol. The project’s Steering Committee and technical working groups launched in September, in a series of meetings in Washington, DC and London, involving over 100 participants.

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.

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. 

Fox television hit ‘24’ and the Los Angeles Clippers are both using WRI’s GHG Protoco

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

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:

In July, the largest 42 cement companies in China will take further steps to measure and manage their GHG emissions. These companies produce approximately 400 million metric tons of cement per year, accounting for over 30% of Chinese cement production. Cement production is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions, accounting for five percent of the global total.

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

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.

We are excited by the release of the first draft of the Global Protocol for Community-Scale GHG Emissions (GPC) to help cities around the world measure and report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions using a more consistent protocol.

After a successful nine-month pilot test from May 2013 to January 2014, the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) has been revised and is now available for public comment until August 18th. The authors particularly welcome review by city officials, practitioners, and technical experts in the fields of energy, transportation, waste management, agriculture and forestry. As a global reporting standard, the GPC enables cities and communities to consistently measure and report GHG emissions and develop climate action plans and low-emission urban development strategies.

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.

WRI celebrated its 30th Anniversary on May 23, with the "Courage to Lead" dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City. At the dinner, WRI recognized the contributions of its special guest, philanthropist and Mayor Michael Bloomberg; and honored Stephen Ross, chairman, CEO and founder of Related Companies; and Jonathan Lash, president of Hampshire College and WRI's former president.