The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has called for clearer and more common reporting standards that will allow companies to better monitor their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
The WWF said it recognises companies’ efforts toward GHG reporting and the progress businesses have made in identifying and addressing emission hotspots.
However, it noted that a lack of standardisation is preventing those companies from truly understanding their emissions and slowing their efforts to reduce them.
Analysis by the non profit organisation states that a ‘mishmash of methodologies’ makes the process of tracking progress on GHG emissions ‘nearly impossible’.
This is because GHG footprints are often calculated by aggregating a series of data from different suppliers.
Each one of those, however, may have its own way of calculating GHG emissions. This makes monitoring efforts ‘irrelevant’ both at a company and wider industry level,,” it said.
To mitigate issues, the group recommends that regulators implement globally standardised or interoperable methodologies and reporting requirements for product accounting,
In addition, it advises they introduce a quality-control process for collected data as well as pre-competitive collaboration and greater transparency in reporting.
Katherine Devine, director of business case development at WWF’s Markets Institute, says that at the moment even those companies that have shown goodwill in reporting GHG emissions still get to cherry-pick whatever data and methodologies make them look best.
‘Companies’ efforts to cut emissions are critical to the global effort to mitigate climate change,’ she adds. ‘In our current situation, this mishmash of methodologies makes demonstrating progress nearly impossible.’
©Markets Media Europe 2023
