On October 4, 2011, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol launched two new standards that will enable businesses to better measure, manage, and report their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) and Product Life Cycle Standards are aimed at saving money, reducing risks, and gaining a competitive advantage for companies. These new standards were created in response to businesses that want to better understand and measure their climate impacts beyond their own operations. By using these new standards, companies will be able to create better products and improve efficiency throughout the value chain.
Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard
The Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard is designed as a first tool that companies can use to assess their entire value chain impacts and to identify opportunities for them to make more sustainable decisions about their activities and the products they produce, buy and sell. In particular, the new standard provides a harmonized global methodology for businesses to measure corporate value chain and product GHG emissions, which will help drive strategic business decisions regarding GHG reductions. Total corporate emissions often come from Scope 3 sources (i.e. indirect emissions that occur in the value chain, including both upstream and downstream emissions), which means that many companies have been missing out on significant opportunities for improvement. Users of the new standard can no account for emissions from 15 categories of Scope 3 activities. The Scope 3 framework also supports strategies to partner with suppliers and customers to address climate impacts throughout the value chain. As a result, both large and small companies can look strategically at GHG emissions across their value chain and focus limited resources in order to yield the biggest impacts.
Product Life Cycle Standard
The Product Life Cycle Standard is a tool to help users understand the full life cycle emissions of a product and focus efforts on the greatest GHG reduction opportunities. The new standard covers raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, storage use and disposal, and is aimed at facilitating the improvement and design of new products. The results can create competitive advantage by enabling better product design, increasing efficiencies, reducing costs and minimizing risks. In addition, the new standard will help companies respond to customer demand for environmental information and make it easier to communicate the environmental aspects of products. Like the Corporate Value Chain Standard, the Product Life Cycle Standard represents a globally consistent approach to measure and manage GHG emissions.
The new standards are available in our link section.