GHG Protocol Announces Key Standard Development Updates

WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 29, 2026) – Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP) today announces a series of updates to its corporate standards as it continues to strengthen its governance, leadership, and institutional capacity to meet growing global demand for trusted, interoperable greenhouse gas accounting. As climate ambition accelerates, globally harmonized, credible, and practical methodologies are increasingly essential to support decision-making, unlock capital, and drive measurable progress across markets and value chains.

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The series of updates to its corporate standards includes the following:

• GHGP and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will combine their corporate carbon accounting standards into a single, harmonized global accounting standard,
• GHGP is publishing the results of its public consultation on the Scope 2 standard and,
• GHGP is releasing preliminary feedback from the Request for Information on its Actions and Market Instruments (AMI) standard development process, which will be synchronized with Scope 2 development.

Building on the strategic partnership established between GHGP and ISO last year, and following engagement with key partners and stakeholders, the two organizations are aligning their standards development programs around a shared goal: the publication of a single, co-branded corporate standard, with an integrated public consultation on the future corporate standard planned for Q2 2027.

The consolidation brings together GHGP’s Scope 1, Scope 2, Scope 3 and Actions and Market Instruments (AMI) standards with ISO’s 14064-1 standard, providing integration and more efficient use by businesses and other users, and more meaningful stakeholder participation through a single coordinated public consultation process. In addition to the technical synergies, the consolidation of the two most widely used carbon accounting standards will unlock greater investment to accelerate global decarbonization.

This action is a key milestone set out in the COP30 Action Agenda, for GHG Protocol and ISO to advance the harmonization of global greenhouse gas accounting standards.

Tim Mohin, CEO of GHG Protocol, said: "A consolidated corporate standard represents a significant step toward integrating and harmonizing greenhouse gas accounting across the world. For the organizations applying these standards to measure their greenhouse gas emissions, a single corporate standard will simplify reporting, reduce duplication, and provide greater consistency across markets and jurisdictions. This will in turn allow companies to spend more time reducing emissions."

As GHGP and ISO move to consolidate carbon accounting standards, technical experts from both organizations continue to advance work across the agreed standards development programme.

One of which is the scope 2 public consultation, which received nearly 1100 responses from 56 countries, and surfaced a range of opinions on how companies should account for renewable energy purchases, while highlighting broad support for improving the accuracy, comparability and integrity of electricity emissions accounting.

In response to this feedback, multiple reporting approaches are being explored, that reflect how different theories of change could best respond to the diverse views represented in the public consultation feedback. Any further proposals will follow the standard development process including development by the Technical Working Group and review and approval by the Independent Standards Board.

Work is also progressing on the Actions and Market Instruments (AMI) workstream as part of the consolidated corporate standard, informed by input gathered through its recent Request for Information. The proposal introduces a “multi-statement” reporting approach, enabling companies to report three distinct components: the emissions from their own operations and value chains (physical emissions); emissions tied to market instruments such as commodity certificates and mitigation-related contractual agreements (market-based emissions); and the emissions impact of their actions and investment decisions using consequential methods1 (GHG impact statement). Public feedback indicates strong support for this approach and its potential to provide a more complete and transparent picture of corporate climate actions, market instruments, and emissions outcomes.

Tim Mohin, CEO of GHG Protocol, concludes: “The AMI standard will help organizations tell a clearer and more credible story of overall climate performance—one that reflects not only the emissions they generate, but also the actions they are taking to reduce them and their contribution to real-world decarbonization.”

About GHG Protocol

GHG Protocol establishes globally recognized standards for measuring and managing greenhouse gas emissions from operations, value chains and climate mitigation actions. Developed through a partnership between the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), GHG Protocol standards are used by thousands of organizations worldwide and underpin many climate disclosure and target-setting programs.