Tag: GHG Protocol

REsurety’s letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission Re: File No. S7-10-22, dated June 17, 2022

AN EXCERPT:

On behalf of REsurety, Inc., a leading analytics provider in the clean energy economy, we are writing in support of File No. S7-10-22: The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors. We also suggest two specific language refinements to improve the accuracy and transparency of Scope 2 emissions disclosures.

Anticipated Value of the Proposed Rule

For the last 10 years, REsurety has helped our clients understand the risks and value of buying and selling electricity from clean energy projects. Many of our clients develop renewable energy projects, have made voluntary public GHG reduction commitments, or own assets exposed to climate-related risk. The SEC’s proposal to require detailed climate-related disclosures has the potential to benefit our customers, as well as the public and the planet. By requiring disclosures from a large category of companies, the proposal protects investors from unintentional exposure to climate-related risk. By standardizing disclosure requirements and requiring attestation, the proposal can also help substantiate GHG reduction claims. In short, the proposed rule has the potential to increase efficiencies in capital markets, boost investor confidence and encourage companies to take effective climate action at scale.

Challenges with the GHG Protocol

While we strongly applaud the SEC’s aims, we are concerned about the pivotal role the GHG Protocol plays in the SEC’s proposal, particularly with respect to Scope 2 emissions disclosures. The proposed GHG emissions disclosure requirements are based “primarily on the GHG Protocol’s concept of scopes and related methodology”.¹ The proposed rule cites the GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance as a methodological source for determining Scope 2 inventories.²

The GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance allows reporting entities to select from an extensive hierarchy of emissions factor data to calculate their footprints. Application of some of these emissions factors would result in footprints that differ materially from actual GHG emissions. For example, the current Scope 2 Guidance lists Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) as the highest-quality “emissions factor” data type but takes no position on where or when RECs are produced relative to their consumption. An entity consuming power in a coal-heavy grid could eliminate its Market-Based Scope 2 footprint by purchasing sufficient RECs from a very clean grid, even when such a purchase would have a negligible effect on actual GHG emissions.

By relying on average emissions factors, current Scope 2 guidance also risks sending signals to registrants that are at odds with the goal of reducing carbon emissions. Consider a registrant purchasing solar energy that mostly displaces coal generation, in a grid that also includes considerable baseload nuclear. Since the average emissions rate of this grid is much lower than the emissions rate of the displaced coal, the reduction in the registrant’s carbon footprint would not reflect the solar energy’s full carbon impact. As a result, the registrant may hesitate to contract for the solar energy in the first place, knowing that its actual carbon benefits could not be reported.

Read our full letter.

We love talking with anyone who shares our goals of more accurate carbon impact measurement and the tools to maximize that impact – so please contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions or want to connect and discuss.

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Footnotes:

Disclaimer.

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By David Luke Oates, SVP of Power Markets Research, REsurety

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is a foundational component of modern climate standards. It is incorporated into the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures’ (TCFD) guidelines for voluntary climate disclosures¹, as well as the Science-Based Targets Initiative’s (SBTi’s) recommendations for aligning corporate targets with climate goals.² It has also largely been paralleled in the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission’s recent proposed rule on climate disclosures.³

The GHG Protocol has achieved considerable success in providing a common framework for voluntary disclosures. But it is now a fairly outdated standard, and its flaws are becoming more impactful and problematic. The GHG Protocol Corporate Standard was originally released in the early 2000s, with updated Scope 2 guidance released in 2015. The nearly seven years since that release have featured dramatic increases in corporate clean energy purchases and interest in accurate corporate climate disclosures.⁴ There is now growing interest in updating the GHG Protocol and addressing some of its shortcomings.

At REsurety, we spend much of our time helping buyers and sellers of clean electricity to manage their financial risks and achieve their decarbonization goals. We are particularly interested in ensuring that Scope 2 accounting is as effective as possible. Today, the GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance has two major flaws: 1) it does not ensure that all actual carbon emissions are accounted for across entities and 2) it often doesn’t create the right incentives for entities interested in decarbonization. 

On the first item, the GHG Protocol’s Market-Based method for Scope 2 accounting allows reporting entities to apply REC purchases to cover their consumption at an emissions rate of 0 tons/MWh. It also allows entities to account for their grid consumption by applying a simple-average emissions rate. This average emissions rate reflects the same clean energy claimed through REC retirements, effectively double-counting the impact of clean energy and contributing to under-reporting of emissions.⁵ While this double-counting may have been of little concern a decade ago, the volume of today’s clean energy purchases make it a more serious problem.

On the second item, by relying on average emissions rates with low temporal and spatial granularity, current Scope 2 guidance risks send the wrong signals to entities interested in decarbonization. Consider an entity purchasing solar energy that mostly displaces coal generation, in a grid that also includes considerable baseload nuclear. Since the average emissions rate of this grid is much lower than the emissions rate of the displaced coal, the reduction in the entity’s carbon footprint would not reflect the solar energy’s full carbon impact. In general, the activities achieving the greatest amount of decarbonization are not fully rewarded under the current GHG Protocol, creating a misalignment of incentives. We think there is an opportunity to fix both of these problems.

Governments and corporate entities have recently made ambitious climate mitigation commitments. Truly delivering on these commitments will require a modernized set of carbon accounting rules to align incentives and avoid double-counting. We believe that a revised Scope 2 carbon accounting framework based on granular marginal emissions data can help address some of the shortcomings we mentioned above. We look forward to sharing more details on potential solutions to these challenges in the months to come.

In the interim, we love talking with anyone who shares our goals of more accurate carbon impact measurement and the tools to maximize that impact – so please contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions or want to connect and discuss.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Footnotes:

Disclaimer.

Return to the blog posts main menu.

Return to the press release main menu.