Unilever, Amazon, BMW join GHG Protocol’s efforts to develop product-level standards

Global standard bodies finalise joint working group, as GHG Protocol hints at direction of travel for Scope 3 standard.

Experts from Unilever, Amazon, Volkswagen and BMW are among those charged with shaping new product-level emissions standards from the GHG Protocol.  

After receiving submissions from more than 400 entities, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and the GHG Protocol have chosen 22 carbon specialists to be the founding members of a working group.  

Other members include academics, non-profits and consultants.

A spokesperson told Real Economy Progress that the members were “selected based on their individual capacities, reflecting deep subject-matter expertise, and ensuring a real balance of perspectives and geographies”.

ISO and the GHG Protocol formed a strategic partnership in September which, supported by the new group, will see them develop a joint standard based on their existing, separate product-level standards. 

The output will “promote credible decarbonisation strategies, enhance market transparency, and enable implementation of mechanisms such as Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms, which rely on robust, product‑level emissions accounting,” they said in a statement. 

Last month, Carbon Measures announced an update to its advisory group, as part of parallel efforts to create product-level carbon accounting standards.

GHG Protocol recently shed some light on the direction of travel for its Scope 3 standard, too.   

In a document released last week, the body provided a “high-level snapshot of where things stand” when it comes to updating its rules for value-chain emissions. 

It revealed it was considering requiring at least 95% of in-scope emissions to be reported, disaggregated by data type, with a new category for facilitated emissions, such as licensing and brokerage.  

If the latter change goes ahead, it would mean those activities would no longer sit within GHG Protocol’s existing ‘investments’ category.   

For some observers, the proposals are a sign that the GHG Protocol is getting tougher on Scope 3, but emissions verification specialist Alexander Stathakis says that’s not strictly true.    

“The revisions are closing gaps that have been exploited or left ambiguous over the past 14 years,” he told Real Economy Progress. “They’re not introducing rigidity.”   

Stathakis said the most consequential proposal is the one about separating out Scope 3 emissions by data type, because it would force firms to be upfront about their reliance on ‘spend-based’ calculations – generally considered an easier but sloppier way of measuring emissions – versus activity- or supplier-based approaches.   

“It doesn’t mandate moving away from spend-based methods, but it does require companies to disclose how much of their Scope 3 figure is attributable to them,” Stathakis explained. 

This “will be uncomfortable for companies that have been using spend-based proxies as a primary method” he added, and may create “confusion and compliance anxiety” over the short term. 

Over the long term, the revisions would help make GHG Protocol’s Scope 3 rules “more relevant and usable in practice,” Stathakis suggested. 

“But there will be a difficult middle period where the gap between what’s required and what’s been done becomes harder to paper over.”