Dear Friends and Colleagues of the GHG Protocol,

Welcome to the first newsletter of the new fiscal year. As we near the end of 2009, the GHG Protocol team has been busy developing a number of new standards and protocols. The new standards for product life cycle and scope 3 accounting and reporting have progressed significantly this quarter. First drafts have been completed and were discussed at the two-day Steering Committee meeting earlier this month. The first Stakeholder Advisory Group webinars were conducted for Asia and Europe/North America to bring the group up to date on the standards development process and discuss important next steps which include five stakeholder workshops that will be held at the end of this year in Europe, Asia, and North America. The new Public Sector standard is also well underway with a provisional draft being released earlier in the month and a comment period that is ongoing and set to end at the beginning of November.

The GHG Protocol’s developing country work continues to grow as twenty-seven of Brazil’s largest companies have, this month, inventoried their greenhouse gas emissions and publicly reported the data for the first time through the Brazil GHG Protocol Program. This quarter has also seen the release of a new WRI issue brief - ‘Accounting for Risk’ - which makes a strong case for why financial institutions should both measure and report the GHG emissions in their investment portfolios.

Finally, the GHG Protocol welcomes Laura Draucker to the team. Laura will be working as a Life Cycle Assessment Associate on the development of the new Product and Scope 3 standards.

As usual we look forward to your feedback.

Best regards,

The WRI and WBCSD GHG Protocol Team

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GHG Protocol Product and Supply Chain Initiative Kicks-Off Stakeholder Advisory Group

August marked the launch of two webinars presented to the Stakeholder Advisory Group for the new standards for Product and Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas Accounting and Reporting. The two-hour webinar was conducted for stakeholders in Europe and North America on August 6th and for stakeholders in Asia on August 27th. The webinars provided an overview of the standards’ development process to date, a review of the initial recommendations, and details of the upcoming comment process on the draft standards.
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Top Companies in Brazil Report Greenhouse Gas Emissions for the First Time

Petrobras, Ford Brasil, Walmart Brasil, and Whirlpool are some of the first companies to voluntarily measure and publicly report their greenhouse gas emissions using the Brazil GHG Protocol Program, a project of the World Resources Institute. Findings suggest nearly 30 companies that took part in the program are responsible for approximately 20 percent of Brazil’s energy and industry sector emissions, or 8.5 percent of Brazil’s total emissions excluding changes in land use and deforestation.
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Closing the Bankers' Loophole in Emissions Reporting

Financial institutions are learning to protect investors–and themselves–from investments exposed to risk from climate change. As the country reflects on the anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent bailouts of major banks, pressure is mounting for financial institutions and companies to more fully disclose their investment risks, especially those risks from climate change.
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The U.S. Public Sector works with GHG Protocol to develop a new protocol

Public sector organizations are amongst the most important sources of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Building off 10 years of success in working with the corporate sector, WRI is now developing new accounting guidance for government operations - the GHG Protocol Public Sector Standard (U.S.). The Standard is intended as a flexible management tool enabling government agencies of all types to meet multiple reporting objectives. The initial focus of the Standard is government agencies in the U.S.
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Sector-specific guidance for GHG inventories in agriculture and forestry sectors

Laura Draucker

Laura joins the GHG Protocol team as a Life Cycle Assessment Associate working on the Product and Supply Chain Initiative. Prior to joining WRI, Laura performed life cycle inventory and cost assessments for the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) on electricity generation and liquid fuel production technologies. With NETL, Laura drafted a guideline document for performing consistent energy-based life cycle assessments and was involved in developing a framework document for consistent GHG accounting of alternative aviation fuels. Laura also completed a post doc with the EPA Office of Research and Development, where she performed MARKAL energy systems scenario modeling of the impacts of carbon legislation, efficiency measures, and technological advances on regional U.S. energy use and emissions. She has experience calculating the life cycle energy use and emissions associated with utility, industrial, and bio-energy processes. Laura holds Doctoral and Bachelors degrees in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and Villanova University, respectively.