Context

Since the publication of Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (2004), Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard (2011), Scope 3 Calculation Guidance (2013), and Scope 2 Guidance (2015), there have been many important developments in greenhouse gas accounting and reporting. Among these are the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the trend toward net-zero targets, mandatory climate disclosure regulations, use of the standards by thousands of companies, and academic research on their use and impact.   

Between November 2022 and March 2023, the public was invited to provide feedback on the current suite of corporate standards and guidance and provide suggestions for either maintaining current practices or developing updates and new additional guidance. This feedback covers GHG Protocol’s Corporate Standard, Scope 2 Guidance, Scope 3 Standard, and supporting documents, and will inform the scope of the updates that GHG Protocol makes to its standards and guidance.

The aim of any updates will be to align with best practice approaches to ensure GHG Protocol standards for scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 are effective in providing a rigorous and credible accounting foundation for businesses to measure, plan and track progress toward science-based and net-zero targets in line with the global 1.5°C goal. Any future updates will seek harmonization and alignment with accounting rules under development through major disclosure initiatives. 

As with all Greenhouse Gas Protocol standards, any updates or development of additional guidance will be subject to an inclusive, global, multi-stakeholder decision-making process, with participation from business, NGOs, academia, and government worldwide.

Where We Are Now

The GHG Protocol secretariat is now in the process of reviewing and analyzing the survey submissions and proposals and developing specific workplans for each survey workstream (Corporate Standard, Scope 2, Scope 3, and market-based accounting). Written summaries of the survey responses will be made publicly available on GHG Protocol’s survey webpage. GHG Protocol will also share these summaries via email to subscribers. In addition, GHG Protocol hosted webinars highlighting the topline findings from each survey. Recordings of those webinars can be found here. If you are interested in receiving email updates from GHG Protocol please subscribe via this form.