This page will guide you through the myriad of standards and regulations that are emerging around the world. Some are frameworks for reporting, others are guidelines to perform carbon emission calculations.

Contact us if you need help to navigate the standards; we can perform a comparative analysis and advise you on the best methods/standards/factors to use given your business characteristics.

1. International

1.1.  Reporting Guidelines

WEF (World Economic Forum) has launched the Carbon Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB), which is an initiative in 2007 to create a framework for reporting carbon disclosures. The announcement details can be read here. A first draft was published earlier in 2009 and can be read here.

GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) is a popular framework to report on Corporate Social Responsibility metrics. CO2Benchmark actively supports this framework and has become an Organisational Stakeholder of GRI.

• Guidelines for establishing the organisational boundaries can be read here
• Metrics for Environmental performance can be read here
• Specific guidelines for some sectors can be read here
  

1.2.  Carbon accounting guidelines

WRI/WBCSD (World Resources Institute and World Business Council for Sustainable Development) have created what is considered today as the de-facto standard for disclosing carbon footprints. The GHG protocol provides guidelines for 3 carbon accounting activities:

• Corporate-wide carbon footprint measurement (view here)
• Project-level carbon footprint measurement (view here)
• Product and Supply chain analysis (view here)

More details about the GHG Protocol for corporate footprints can be read here.

• Organisational boundaries are discussed here
• Different types of emissions are discussed here
• Conversion factors used for calculations are taken from the IPCC guidelines and are documented here
• A set of template spreadsheets that you can download to perform the calculations can be found here

ISO (International Standards Organisation) has created the ISO 14064 standard in 2005, which wraps auditability around the GHG Protocol. Note that some of the CO2Benchmark staff is formally trained for ISO 14064.

2.  United Kingdom

DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change) was created in October 2008, to bring together energy policy (previously with BIS - the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills), and climate change mitigation policy (previously with Defra).

DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) has established a list of guidelines and conversion factors that can be used in calculations. Overall DEFRA supports the GRI in terms of framework for reporting

• Conversion factors can be viewed here

DECC and DEFRA have published a new guidance document to help companies measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions. (here)

BSI (British Standards Institution) has defined the PAS 2050 standard to assess the lifecycle of carbon emissions for goods and services. Details can be read here .

3. USA

EIA (Energy Information Administration) has developed a set of guidelines and tools:

• Tools can be found here
• Conversion factors can be found here or here
• Their method to calculate emissions from vehicles is elaborate and unique (see here and here)
• Reporting guidelines can be found here
  

EPA (Environmental Protection Association) has also developed a set of guidelines and tools:

• Emission factors can be found here
• Formulas to perform calculations are discussed here
  

DOE (Department of Energy) is further supporting the voluntary disclosure of carbon emissions via their 1605(b) Program, of which details can be read here

4. France

ADEME has created a carbon accounting tool that follows the GHG Protocol and ISO 14064 standards. A set of template spreadsheets connects to a database with over 600 conversion factors.  All conversion factors can be viewed here .

5. Australia

NGER Act (National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting) is a reporting framework supported by a set of tools and guidelines.

• Reporting guidelines can be found here
• Emissions factors can be found here

Wikipedia Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_carbon_accounting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_accounting