New Global Greenhouse Gas Measuring Standards Unveiled in China

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP), a series of greenhouse gas accounting and reporting standards and guidelines, has launched two new global greenhouse gas (GHG) measuring standards in Beijing.

The standards, jointly developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), was unveiled at a launching ceremony Friday, after the new standards' official launch in New York, London and San Francisco.

The new standards will help companies to better measure, report and manage their GHG emissions in order to save money, reduce risks, and gain competitive advantages, said a statement issued by the WRI.

The Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) standard aims to measure the GHG emissions off limits in the previously released Scope 1 and Scope 2 standards.

The Scope 1 standard measures the emissions directly discharged during the companies' production, such as emissions from plants, facilities and vehicles. The Scope 2 standard is used for evaluation of the indirect emissions caused by production, such as emissions caused by the generation of power, steam and heating and cooling supplies purchased and consumed by the reporting companies.

The new Scope 3 standard refers to the emissions indirectly incurred by companies' value chains in their upstream procedures, such as raw material production, transportation of the materials and employee commuting, as well as within downstream procedures, such as the distribution and sale of goods, use and processing of the companies' sold goods, and the disposal of these goods.

The Product Life Cycle Standard, the other new standard unveiled at Friday's ceremony, covers the life-long emissions of an individual product from its raw material acquisition, production to the end-of-life treatment.

By adopting the two new standards, companies can gain a comprehensive view of the emissions produced when making a specific product and across the value chain. They will help companies to better identify and understand the risks and opportunities associated with GHG emissions, engage value chain partners in GHG management and reduction and enhance transparency of information for the stakeholder and consumers, according to the WRI statement.

With more companies using these standards and reporting their emissions, Chinese consumers will hopefully be able to help to address global climate change by choosing more environmentally-friendly products, said Jennifer Morgan, director of the WRI's Climate and Energy Program, at the ceremony.

The GHGP and the two new standards enable Lenovo, China's largest PC maker, to take the emissions in consumers' use of the company's products into consideration during the designing process and to develop more low-carbon products, said Gong Xun, Lenovo's global head of low carbon technology and product carbon footprint program.

According to the WRI statement, in 2010, more than 85 percent of the 2,487 respondents to the Carbon Disclosure Project survey used the GHGP standard to measure and report their emissions.

It is the first time for the WRI to officially release GHG Protocol standards in China. Eight Chinese companies, including Baosteel Group, Lenovo, PricewaterhouseCoopers China and Lianye Garment-making company, were involved in the testing of the new standards, and it's also the first time for Chinese companies to be engaged in the development of international standards for GHG.