ISO was preparing to launch its new international greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting and verification standards — the three-part ISO 14064 — when this issue of ISO Management Systems went to press.
ISO’s goal in developing the standards is to provide a set of unambiguous and verifiable requirements or specifications to support organizations and proponents of GHG emission reduction projects. When they use ISO 14064 for quantification, reporting and verification, it will ensure that “ a tonne of carbon is always a tonne of carbon .”
ISO 14064 has resulted from several years of detailed study and engagement with the international community of governmental and business organizations with a stake in climate change. It has been developed by Working Group (WG) 5 on Climate Change of ISO Technical Committee (TC) 207, which is responsible for the ISO 14000 family of environmental management standards.
These high profile standards — which were presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal, Canada, in late 2005 — will provide clarity and consistency between those reporting GHG emissions and stakeholders.
ISO 14064 provides a solution to the problem brought to light in 2002 by the ISO Technical Management Board’s Ad Hoc Group on Climate Change. It observed that governments, business corporations and voluntary initiatives were using a number of approaches to account for organization and project-level GHG emissions and removals with no generally accepted validation or verification protocols.
In response, the Department of Standards Malaysia (DSM — www.dsm.gov.my) and the Standards Council of Canada (SCC — www.scc.ca) proposed the development of ISO 14064 and have since managed some 175 international experts from 45 countries and 19 liaison organizations through eight international meetings to complete the standard.
ISO 14064 objectives are to :
* enhance environmental integrity by promoting consistency, transparency and credibility in GHG quantification, monitoring, reporting and verification ;
* enable organizations to identify and manage GHG-related liabilities, assets and risks ;
* facilitate the trade of GHG allowances or credits ; and
* support the design, development and implementation of comparable and consistent GHG schemes or programmes.
ISO 14064, Greenhouse gases, comprises three parts, respectively detailing specifications and guidance for the organizational and project levels, and for validation and verification.
Organizational level
Part 1: Specification with guidance at the organization level for the quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals, details principles and requirements for designing, developing, managing and reporting organizational or company-level GHG inventories.
It includes requirements for determining organizational boundaries, GHG emission boundaries, quantifying an organization’s GHG emissions and removals, and identifying specific company actions or activities aimed at improving GHG management.
It also includes requirements and guidance on inventory quality management, reporting, internal auditing and the organization’s responsibilities in verification activities.
Part 1 will be of interest to organizations participating in voluntary GHG registries or regulatory allowance-based schemes, or GHG scheme administrators designing such programmes or schemes.
Part 1 is consistent with best practice established in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Accounting Standard developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Resources Institute.
Project level
Part 2 : Specification with guidance at the project level for the quantification, monitoring and reporting of greenhouse gas emission reductions and removal enhancements, focuses on GHG projects or project-based activities specifically designed to reduce GHG emissions or increase GHG removals.
It includes principles and requirements for determining project baseline scenarios and for monitoring, quantifying and reporting project performance relative to the baseline scenario and provides the basis for GHG projects to be validated and verified.
The Part 2 standard will be of interest to project proponents participating in voluntary programmes or regulatory credit-based schemes, or GHG scheme administrators designing such programmes or schemes.
Part 2 of ISO 14064 requires users to select or establish relevant good practice guidance in fulfilling many of its requirements to ensure compatibility with existing (e.g., Clean Development Mechanism) or emerging practice.
Validation and verification
Part 3 : Specification with guidance for the validation and verification of greenhouse gas assertions, details principles and requirements for verifying GHG inventories and validating or verifying GHG projects.
It describes the process for GHG-related validation or verification and specifies components such as validation or verification planning, assessment procedures and the evaluation of organization or project GHG assertions.
ISO 14064 Part 3 can be used by organizations or independent parties to validate or verify GHG assertions and establishes new international best practice for the GHG validation or verification process.
ISO 14065
ISO 14064 will be complemented by ISO 14065, which specifies requirements to accredit or otherwise recognize bodies that undertake GHG validation or verification using ISO 14064 or other relevant standards or specifications.
ISO 14065 is being developed by the joint Working Group 6, which was set up in 2004 and comprises experts from ISO/TC 207 and ISO/CASCO, Committee on conformity assessment, managed by the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS – www.sabs.co.za) in partnership with the Standards Council of Canada. The standard is expected to be published in early 2007.
Challenges
The developers of ISO 14064, whilst taking advantage of ISO’s reputation and process strengths, were not immune from the challenges of standardization in this sometimes complex and always political area. To help guide their work, WG 5 established and maintained the four principles of regime neutrality, technical rigour, extensive participation, speed-to-market (see Table 1).
ISO 14064 developers regularly revisited these process principles to help ensure that the standards would provide a variety of users with a flexible, credible and verifiable tool applicable across a variety of voluntary or regulatory GHG schemes.
WG 5 is not under the illusion that ISO 14064 will represent a “ total solution ” to GHG accounting and verification needs, but is confident that it represents an important “ building block ” to organizations or project proponents participating in various voluntary or regulatory initiatives, or to administrators responsible for designing and implementing GHG schemes or programmes.
Striking example
ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden recently commented: “ Claims made about reductions of the greenhouse gas emissions widely held responsible for climate change may have political and financial implications, in addition to environmental and technical ones. Ensuring their credibility is thus vital.
“ ISO is combining its environmental and conformity assessment expertise to develop tools for measuring, validating and verifying such claims. This is a striking example of how ISO’s work can help to provide practical tools for meeting the global challenges that the international community is wrestling with.”
ISO 14064: greenhouse gas management Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions are high on the environmental agenda.
Many companies now face pressure to account for their contribution towards global greenhouse gas emissions and through the Kyoto treaty greenhouse gases have now become a tradable commodity. Good greenhouse gas management is therefore increasingly important for organisations. ISO 14064 is the international standard that provides a framework for organisations to quantify and report on greenhouse gas emissions and removals. This website provides general information on greenhouse gas management and related climate change issues.
The current ISO 14064 consists of three parts:
* ISO 14064-1: Specification with guidance at the organisation level for quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals
* ISO 14064-2: Specification with guidance at the project level for quantification, monitoring and reporting of greenhouse gas emission reduction or removal enhancements
* ISO 14064-3: specification with guidance for validation and verification of greenhouse gas assertions.
Green Pharma© is a project for all the CRO'S and CMO'S in the UK who are in the process of Carbon Offsetting and have a Carbon Analysis ISO 14064 standard.
To place a GreenPharma Order, please print out the attached pdf file, fill in your details and either fax it or Email it back to us.
Order Form
Ref: 47/08
Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR
Out of hours telephone 020 7270 8960
Benn announces Government offsetting code
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn today challenged the voluntary offsetting industry to provide strong standards for offsetting products so that they can be part of a landmark Government Code of Best Practice for consumer offsetting products.
Mr Benn today announced the final structure of the Code, which will be backed by a quality mark. Emissions offset through accredited products will be calculated consistently and correctly, and consumers will be provided with clear information and transparent prices.
“If people are trying to reduce their impact on the climate, the first thing they should do is find ways to reduce their carbon footprint. But realistically, there are emissions that can’t or won’t be avoided, and that’s where offsetting can play an important role.
“That’s why the Government is developing a Code of Practice and a quality mark for high-quality offsetting products to help businesses and individuals Act on CO2.”
Mr Benn said that as a starting point, the Code would only cover offsetting products using Kyoto-compliant credits initially.
“I think it’s right that we set a high standard. It’s important that consumers who want to buy carbon offsets with confidence can do just that. When a consumer buys a tonne of carbon with the Government’s quality mark, they’ll know they’re buying a full tonne of carbon,” he said.
“However, we recognise that credits from the unregulated market may be innovative and of a very high standard. So we’re leaving the Offsetting Code open to high-quality voluntary offsetting products, provided the industry can provide a similar level of assurance about the standard of the credits.
“The challenge to the offsetting industry is clear: to establish a clear, rigorous standard for voluntary projects that deals with the concerns that have been raised. We will support them in developing that standard – and when we have the necessary guarantees, we’ll include high-quality voluntary offsets in the Code.”
The Government’s decision recognises the efforts of the industry so far to develop different standards for Voluntary Emission Reductions (VERs), and encourages the industry to come together and build on the existing groundwork.
The principles that will need to be addressed by an industry standard are:
* additionality, meaning that the carbon savings must be in addition to reductions that would be made anyway;
* avoiding carbon leakage, or emissions avoided on one site simply being moved somewhere else;
* permanence, ensuring that emissions reductions were not simply put off until later;
* verification systems for emissions reductions;
* transparency on the methodologies and procedures used; and
* avoiding double counting, ensuring that emissions counted in an offset product are not counted elsewhere, for example as savings through an emissions trading scheme.
Once an industry consensus has been reached on a standard for voluntary credits and it has been fully operational for six months, the Government has asked that an independent audit is carried out.
The Government has appointed AEA to become the accreditation body for the Code, and they will today issue the final draft of the Code for industry comment on accreditation procedures. The quality mark associated with the work is currently being developed, and will be ready to be used when the first products are accredited later this year.
Compliance credits, also known as Kyoto credits, offer consumers a transparent system which allow consumers to trace their offset credits back to the projects that have generated them, and to scrutinise the full audit trail for each project and each tonne of emissions.
The Government Carbon Offsetting Fund, through which ministerial and official air travel is offset, uses compliance credits from renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.
GreenPharma-The concept for the Company Employee Loyalty Scheme for CRO and CMO.
making the world a better place
International Pharmaceutical Publishers
