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Agriculture Guidance

The first ever global guidance to measure GHG emissions for the agriculture sector

The GHG Protocol Agricultural Guidance is a supplement to GHG Protocol Corporate Standard and covers all agricultural subsectors, including livestock, crop production, and land use change.

Agriculture and agriculture-driven land use change contribute around 17% of global emissions, while 75% of agricultural producers targeted by CDP do not report their emissions. The GHG Protocol Agricultural Guidance is intended to promote sector-wide adoption of emissions management practices by harmonizing how agricultural companies worldwide measure and report their emissions.

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Click to download (GHG Protocol Agricultural Guidance, 1.75 MB)
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Who Can Use the Agriculture Guidance? 

  • Companies that own or control agricultural operations.
  • GHG reporting programs.
  • Governmental and non-governmental initiatives seeking to develop tools or metrics for assessing the GHG emissions from agriculture.

Special Initiatives in Brazil and Ethiopia

Both Brazil and Ethiopia stand out in terms of the importance of the GHG emissions from land use. Agriculture and land use change account for about 55% of Brazil’s GHG emissions. In Ethiopia, agriculture accounts for 85% of total employment and 40% of GDP, while land use overall accounts for more than 85% of GHG emissions.

To facilitate adoption of the Guidance in both countries, the GHG Protocol conducted the intensive review and road-testing of the Guidance in each country. It also developed a GHG emissions calculation tool specific to Brazil.
Corporate Standard
The GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard provides requirements and guidance for companies and other organizations, such as NGOs, government agencies, and universities, that are preparing a corporate-level GHG emissions inventory.

Contact Us

For questions about this guidance, please contact us.

Supporting Documents

Agricultural Guidance for Ethiopia
Agricultural Protocol for Ethiopia
Date: February 2016 Size: 738.33 KB
Annex I
Date: February 2016 Size: 58.03 KB
GHG Assessment Guideline Volume I Soil
Date: February 2016 Size: 2.51 MB
GHG Assessment Guideline Volume II Aboveground Biomass
Date: February 2016 Size: 2.86 MB
GHG Assessment Guideline Volume III Livestock
Date: February 2016 Size: 1.64 MB
Agricultural Guidance for Brazil - Portuguese (Diretrizes Agropecuárias)
Metodologia
Date: December 2019 Size: 807.03 KB
Novo: Ferramenta de Cálculo Brasil
Date: October 2020 Size: 439.9 KB

Related news

Open Comment Period for Agriculture Guidance
GHG Protocol has released a second draft of its Agricultural Guidance for open comment. The Agricultural Guidance is an international supplement to the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard that aims to customize the latter to the agricultural sector, while addressing the unique challenges posed by the sector - accounting for reversible carbon stocks in soils and biomass, setting and tracking progress toward reduction targets against a background of highly variable emissions, quantifying emissions, etc.
03.26.2013  | Announcement
A New Tool To Measure And Reduce Emissions From Agriculture
Agriculture is a major actor in spurring global climate change. The sector is already responsible for at least 10-12 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and agricultural emissions are expected to increase by more than 50 percent by 2030.
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Event Recap: Brazil Agriculture Inaugural Workshop
Agriculture and agriculture-linked land use change contribute almost 80% to Brazil’s national emissions. On September 25 in Sao Paulo, GHG Protocol held an inaugural workshop to engage key stakeholders in developing a set of new tools specific to Brazilian agriculture – a corporate GHG accounting standard and emission factors. The event featured a keynote address by Eduardo Assad, a director at Embrapa and formerly the Brazilian secretary for climate change.
11.05.2012  | Blog post