Handbook: GHG emissions reporting

This handbook provides an introductory explanation of GHG emissions reporting and is written for finance professionals who are more familiar with financial reporting and generally accepted accounting principles. As such, we explain concepts in a way that we think will be the most understandable for you, our audience.

Applicability

Standards and guidance of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol

• All entities

GHG 101: The fundamentals

The world of finance is expanding. Beyond numbers and into nature.

We increasingly find familiar concepts – accounting, reporting – with unfamiliar elements – greenhouse gases, renewable energy. This merging of worlds has made one thing clear: nature isn’t just for the scientists anymore; finance professionals are living in this ecosystem too.

Climate-related disclosure requirements are being finalized by the International Sustainability Standards Board, the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group and the SEC. These requirements are likely to shape the global climate reporting landscape. And although different in many ways, these forthcoming requirements share a common anchor: greenhouse gas emissions.

More companies than ever before will face regulatory requirements to report the direct and indirect emissions associated with their operations. And we expect this reporting to be heavily informed by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.

The Protocol has emerged as a nexus in the climate reporting ecosystem. It provides the underlying principles, concepts and methods to develop a greenhouse gas emissions inventory that can be used for various voluntary or mandatory reporting purposes.

Finance professionals play a valuable role in bridging between scientific data and investor-quality information. And because of its influence on the future of emissions reporting, it is becoming more important for finance professionals to understand the Protocol and the fundamentals of greenhouse gas emissions reporting – GHG 101.

We hope this handbook helps to provide that foundational understanding. Anchored in the Protocol. Translated to the language of Finance.  

Report contents

• Foundational concepts
• Organizational boundary
• Operational boundary
• Emissions calculations
• Scope 1 emissions
• Scope 2 emissions
• Scope 3 emissions
• Tracking emissions and setting targets
• Offset credits
• Reporting

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