Carbon Measures CEO: ‘These are the types of organisations I absolutely want to work with’

Carbon Measures has been up and running for less than six months, but it’s already got its fair share of sceptics. 

The body, launched last October to develop a product-level carbon accounting system, is regularly accused of acting in bad faith. 

Some believe it wants to undermine well-established initiatives like the GHG Protocol, by coming up with a more business-friendly, rival framework – one that conveniently ignores Scope 3 emissions.  

Speaking to Sustainable Views for an article on Carbon Measures last week, veteran climate investor David Blood said “there are some folks who want to see the GHG Protocol dismantled or neutered”. 

Then there are those who think it’s simply a way for polluting companies to stall climate action for another few years, by inventing a whole new reporting ecosystem.  

But Amy Brachio insists it’s all much less cynical than that.  

“We’re not against anything that exists today,” says the CEO of Carbon Measures. 

“GHG Protocol was designed to assess risk across different organisations based on greenhouse gases, ISSB is designed to provide investors with sustainability data.”

“The problem we’re trying to solve is that market incentives aren’t aligned with the actions needed to drive down emissions.” 

Brachio’s claims are notably different from those made at the launch of the initiative, when Carbon Measures vowed to create “a more accurate carbon accounting framework” rather than a complementary one. 

Now, the emphasis is on its role in getting governments to introduce carbon-intensity standards for products.   

“There’s not much incentive for companies to outperform their competitors on decarbonisation at the moment, but we think you could create one,” Brachio tells Real Economy Progress. 

She says product-level standards “have worked time and time again” to tackle other problems like ozone-layer depletion and acid rain.   

“We all have seat belts in our cars and efficiency ratings on refrigerators,” she points out. 

Before similar standards can be introduced for carbon-intensity, though, the market needs an accounting system to measure it. 

The plan is to build one based on the work of two academics, Robert Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna, who believe emissions shouldn’t belong to entities – they should instead be assigned to products and services, and move with them as they pass between organisations.   

The objective, Brachio says, isn’t to invent another way of divvying up responsibility for the world’s emissions – it’s to create a method for disclosing how carbon intensive products are, so they can be compared by customers, and regulated by governments.  

“We aim to exist for between five and seven years,” she explains.  

“And success over that period would look like a widely-adopted, product-level carbon accounting framework that’s accepted in the way that the IFRS accounting standards are, and that multiple major jurisdictions have product-intensity standards in place.”

While the more collegiate language and regulatory focus may reassure some critics, there remains one major red flag: Carbon Measures’ choice of collaborators. 

This week, in partnership with the International Chamber of Commerce, it named a second batch of advisors.  

They include current and former employees from some of the world’s most polluting companies, many of which are known for lobbying and litigating to undo existing climate accountability mechanisms. 

A director for Germany’s BASF has been appointed to the advisory board, for example, amid a campaign by its CEO to get rid of Europe’s carbon markets.   

Oil majors Shell, TotalEnergies and Exxon are all participating in the initiative – either as companies or through individual employees – despite their high-profile track records for challenging decarbonisation efforts.  

Toyota, which – according to recent reports – uses computer games to encourage staff to petition for looser emissions regulations, has just signed up too.  

Then there’s Bank of America, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Bayer, CF Industries and an arm of BlackRock. 

“These are the types of organisations that I absolutely want to work with,” says Brachio, when asked how she justifies the involvement of some of these firms.  

“If you worked with the companies everyone expected you to be working with, I’m not sure how much impact you’d actually have,” she continues, adding that many of those involved with Carbon Measures operate in parts of the economy “where the change has to happen”. 

She insists that all of them believe in climate change, the role of business in tackling it, and the need for the required investments to be commercially viable. 

“I’m comfortable with the scepticism,” says Brachio. 

“People just have to keep an eye on us, and judge us based on the actions we take and the seriousness with which we approach this.”