Carbon Accounting May Be the Most Important Climate Fight You’ve Never Heard About

To understand the carbon accounting landscape, you need to understand the system at the center of the debate. For more than two decades, one approach, known as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP), has flourished and become the de facto global standard. Under GHGP’s approach, emissions are divided into scopes: Scope 1 for direct emissions from a company’s operations, Scope 2 from a company’s purchased electricity, heat, and cooling, and Scope 3 for value chain emissions. The GHGP approach has driven a variety of guidance documents and informed regulation and certifications issued by other entities.