Many organizations are starting to think about how to manage their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for a number of reasons: to minimize their impact on the planet, to prepare for regulation and address evolving disclosure requirements, to increase energy efficiency, and/or to build their profile as an environmental leader.
Building an inventory of your sources and emissions (e.g., carbon footprint) is an essential first step to assessing risks, reducing emissions, and tracking your performance. Learners may also choose to take an optional section that covers reporting to The Climate Registry and provides practical experience using The Registry’s General Reporting Protocol.
The material taught in this course serves as the basis for almost all of the entity-level GHG reporting programs in the world, such as:
- CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project)
- The Climate Registry (TCR)
- Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
- U.S. DOE/EIA 1605(b) program
- California’s Climate Disclosure Accountability Act
- International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) S2
Key concepts covered include:
- GHG accounting principles
- Defining applications for GHG inventories
- Design and development of GHG inventories
- Establishing GHG boundaries for an organization
- Identifying emission sources
- Tracking emissions over time, recalculations, and establishing a base year
- Setting GHG reduction targets
- Inventory quality management
- Preparing a GHG inventory report
- Preparing for verification
- Optional – Reporting emissions according to The Climate Registry’s General Reporting Protocol
This course was jointly developed by the World Resources Institute, The Climate Registry and the GHG Management Institute.
“Course 201 was an amazing eye-opener to start the learning process related to GHG and how to go about establishing the boundaries and the base year, starting the inventory, and all the other nuances related to calculating emissions, and reporting. It was well done and easy to follow, and the outcome was a strong understanding that will set the stage for the completion of subsequent Courses. All in all, it was a tough course, but a very satisfying learning experience.”
– Daniel Shepherdson, Canada
“The course helped me understand the basics of GHG accounting including boundary setting, choosing consolidation approaches, doing the actual calculations and other considerations like recalculations, carbon offsets and fugitive emissions. It is great for anyone trying to start with the basics of the basic understanding of GHG accounting or to refresh ones knowledge in the field.”
– Daniel Bitew, United States
“The GHG Accounting course I enrolled in exceeded my expectations in every aspect. The relevant and up-to-date content, coupled with engaging teaching methods, provided me with a solid understanding of greenhouse gas accounting principles. The incorporation of practical examples and real-world case studies not only made the concepts comprehensible but also highlighted their practical applications.”
– I Gede Mahendra Wijaya, Indonesia
“I have enjoyed this course. It’s so detailed and very informative, my understanding of GHG accounting at the corporate level has really improved. There is a lot of information shared that’s beneficial to learners. I also liked that the discussion forum is very active and has a record of all the conversations, I found this forum very enriching as well to the extent that whenever I had difficulties understanding a concept, I will peruse through previous discussions and get better explanations.”
– Jacob Simwero, Kenya
