ISO Begins Developing New GHG Accounting Standard

Who? The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a non-governmental network of national standards institutes from 145 countries working in partnership with international organizations, governments, industry, business and consumer representatives. The ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 families are among ISO’s most widely known and successful standards; ISO 9000 has become an international reference for quality requirements in business to business dealings, and ISO 14000 is on track to achieve at least as much, if not more, in helping organizations to meet their environmental challenges.

What? ISO’s Technical Committee 207 (TC 207) has begun developing a new standard divided in three parts, titled:

• ISO 14064 Greenhouse gases - Part 1: Specification for the quantification, monitoring and reporting of entity emissions and removals
• ISO 14064 Greenhouse gases – Part 2: Specification for thequantification, monitoring and reporting of project emissions and removals
• ISO 14064 Greenhouse gases – Part 3: Specification and guidance for validation, registration, verification and certification.

Currently, there are three draft documents, one that lays out a potential standard for greenhouse gas emissions at the entity, one for project levels, and one that covers validation, registration, verification and certification of greenhouse gas reporting.

Why? ISO initiated this process in response to the proliferation of voluntary and mandatory climate change reporting initiatives. ISO hopes that a new “regime neutral” ISO GHG standard will promote integrity in greenhouse gas measurement and reporting, facilitate trade in greenhouse gas credits and enable organizations to more effectively manage risk associated with their climate change assets or liabilities.

When? ISO observers predict that the new standard will be finalized by 2005. The TC 207 met March 10-13, 2003 in Malaysia to review country comments on draft documents. The main accomplishments of the meeting were: 1) the determination of the structure of a new set of documents, 2) preparation of new working drafts of the entity and validation/verification portions of the standard, and 3) formal acknowledgement of the existing World Resources Institute/World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WRI/WBCSD) GHG Protocol as formal guidance for the ISO standard. The next ISO meeting on this standard will take place June 30-July 4 in Indonesia. The goal of the Indonesia meeting is to develop a first committee draft of the entity portion of the standard; the project and validation/verification portions may not be ready by that time.