New international GHG reporting standards
Two new greenhouse-gas (GHG) reporting standards have been unveiled by the GHG Protocol.
The benchmarks – the corporate value chain (scope 3) and product life cycle standards – aim to help firms to better understand and measure their climate impacts beyond their own operations.
“The new standards provide companies with a comprehensive view of the emissions produced when making a product and across the value chain.
“They will help companies make better business decisions and stimulate innovation in products and production methods,” said Björn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, which developed the standards with the World Resources Institute (WRI).
The corporate value chain standard provides a method for measuring supply chain GHG emissions, while the product life cycle standard supports the measuring of emissions from individual products.
Janet Ranganathan, vice-president for science and research at the WRI, said the standards had been “road tested” by 60 firms in 17 countries, and gave the example of how piloting the scope 3 standard had helped Kraft identify that 93% of its emissions were from its supply chain, with 70% of those from the production of raw materials such as coca beans.
Frank Appel, CEO at Deutsche Post DHL, described the scope 3 standard as a “major milestone” with companies now able to adopt the same standards. Other companies involved in testing the scope 3 standard endorsed the methodology.
“Our road test of the new standard provided us with key data to drive our strategic business decisions regarding GHG emissions,” said Kelly Semrau, vice-president of global corporate affairs, communication and sustainability at SC Johnson.
Ranganathan called on industry associations to encourage member companies to use the standards as Helen Fleming, climate change director at Tesco, confirmed that the board of the Consumer Goods Forum is recommending that its 400 member firms adopt the product life cycle standard.
Meanwhile, the Carbon Trust has become the first organisation to offer a service certifying the product life cycle standard. It advises companies to use the new standard in combination with its carbon reduction label to robustly communicate product carbon footprints.