As part of our goal of enabling our member companies to effectively engage with climate change and report through the CDP reporting platform we provide annual GHG accounting training (last held in May 2016) and produce a number of reports to support companies in understanding carbon disclosure. This is a programme that was built with the support of the World Resources Institute (WRI) and now runs independently.
Over the past 3 years we have produced the following reports:
- IPCC Guidelines vs. GHG Protocol: Government reporting (for mandatory reporting and for the carbon tax) is based on the IPCC Green House Gas Inventory Guidelines and yet most companies are used to reporting using the GHG Accounting Protocol (developed by the WBCSD and the WRI). While similar the two systems are not the same and as companies are required to report to government they will need to adjust their reporting processes to account for these differences. To support the transition the NBI provides this process document detailing the key differences between the two processes and highlights company experience in reporting under the IPPC guidelines.
- Accounting for GHG Emissions from Leased Assets: One of the more confusing aspects of GHG accounting is what to do when accounting for emissions from leased assets. There are many companies who report on their emissions who account incorrectly. The NBI issued a guidance note to support companies in dealing with this tricky issue.
- Assurance Primer: a short report providing a description of the key terminology and processes intended to provide sustainability managers with enough knowledge and language to engage with assurance providers (both internally and externally) and provide the logic for implementing assurance within your business.
- Value in your supply chain Scope 3 Accounting Guidance Report: Scope 3 reporting is a particular challenge for companies as there are many scope 3 categories and data can be difficult or very expensive to get. This paper describes the importance of scope 3 reporting as well as provides a methodology to help companies relatively inexpensively assess and prioritise the scope 3 categories most appropriate to their business.
- Calculating a Grid Emissions Factor (GEF) for South Africa: There is an enormous range of emissions factors in use by South African companies when calculating their emissions from purchased electricity (scope 2 emissions). This creates challenges in comparability across disclosure. Working with our member companies Exxaro, Mac Consulting and Eskom (as well as with the ITTCC and CDP) we propose a methodology for calculating a grid emissions factor for use in voluntary public reporting of GHGs.
- Voluntary vs. Mandatory Reporting: With mandatory reporting being implemented in South Africa many companies are questioning the future of voluntary reporting. This paper examines the benefits of voluntary reporting by looking at the experience of three companies responding to the CDP. We conclude that mandatory reporting and voluntary reporting serve very different purposes and that the benefits of voluntary reporting are significant.
