Carbon footprint

Subject

Climate change arising from anthropogenic activity has been identified as one of the greatest challenges facing the world and will continue to affect business and citizens over future decades.

Climate change has implications for both human and natural systems and could lead to significant impacts on resource availability, economic activity and human wellbeing. In response, international, regional, national and local initiatives are being developed and implemented by public and private sectors to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere, as well as to facilitate adaptation to climate change.

There is a need for an effective and progressive response to the urgent threat of climate change on the basis of the best available scientific knowledge. ISO produces documents that support the transformation of scientific knowledge into tools that will help address climate change.

GHG initiatives on mitigation rely on the quantification, monitoring, reporting and verification of GHG emissions and/or removals.

Applied standards

The ISO 14060 family provides clarity and consistency for quantifying, monitoring, reporting and validating or verifying GHG emissions and removals to support sustainable development through a low-carbon economy and to benefit organizations, project proponents and interested parties worldwide. Specifically, the use of the ISO 14060 family:

• enhances the environmental integrity of GHG quantification;
• enhances the credibility, consistency and transparency of GHG quantification, monitoring, reporting, verification and validation;
• facilitates the development and implementation of GHG management strategies and plans;
• facilitates the development and implementation of mitigation actions through emission reductions or removal enhancements;
• facilitates the ability to track performance and progress in the reduction of GHG emissions and/or increase in GHG removals.

Applications of the ISO 14060 family include:

• corporate decisions, such as identifying emission reduction opportunities and increasing profitability by reducing energy consumption;
• risks and opportunities management, such as climate-related risks, including financial, regulatory, supply chain, product and customer, litigation, reputational risks and its opportunity for business (e.g. new market, new business model);
• voluntary initiatives, such as participation in voluntary GHG registries or sustainability reporting initiatives;
• GHG markets, such as the buying and selling of GHG allowances or credits;
• regulatory/government GHG programmes, such as credit for early action, agreements or national and local reporting initiatives.

In particular the ISO 14060 family includes the following standards:

ISO 14064-1 details principles and requirements for designing, developing, managing and reporting organization-level GHG inventories. It includes requirements for determining GHG emission and removal 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.

ISO 14064-2 details principles and requirements for determining baselines, and monitoring, quantifying and reporting of project emissions. It focuses on GHG projects or project-based activities specifically designed to reduce GHG emissions and/or enhance GHG removals. It provides the basis for GHG projects to be verified and validated.

ISO 14064-3 details requirements for verifying GHG statements related to GHG inventories, GHG projects, and carbon footprints of products. It describes the process for verification or validation, including verification or validation planning, assessment procedures, and the evaluation of organizational, project and product GHG statements.

ISO 14065 defines requirements for bodies that validate and verify GHG statements. Its requirements cover impartiality, competence, communication, validation and verification processes, appeals, complaints and the management system of validation and verification bodies. It can be used as a basis for accreditation and other forms of recognition in relation to the impartiality, competence and consistency of validation and verification bodies.

ISO 14066 specifies competence requirements for validation teams and verification teams. It includes principles and specifies competence requirements based on the tasks that validation teams or verification teams have to be able to perform.

ISO 14067 defines the principles, requirements and guidelines for the quantification of the carbon footprint of products. The aim of ISO 14067 is to quantify GHG emissions associated with the life cycle stages of a product, beginning with resource extraction and raw material sourcing and extending through the production, use and end-of-life phases of the product.

ISO/TR 14069 assists users in the application of this document, providing guidelines and examples for improving transparency in the quantification of emissions and their reporting. It does not provide additional guidance to this document.

Our services

The SSA provides high quality services of Validation and Verification of organisation declaration towards Carbon footprint of products/services calculated based on ISO 14067.

The service includes a complex of onsite and off-site assessment of data on Carbon footprint and the way of its calculation. One of the focus area of the assessors is analysis of methodology and tools applied for calculation as well as check of the input data used for calculation including those measured at the enterprise and taken from external expert and public sources.