Carbon accounting at the landscape level

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The challenge
The project
Towards landscape impact
Driving best practice

Introduction

Project details

Title: A shared value approach to climate impact at landscape scale

Project lead: Gold Standard

Project partners: SustainCERT, WWF Austria (Landscape Finance Lab), RSB, BCI, Fairtrade, FSC, Textile Exchange, MSC

Duration: July 2020 – July 2022

Contact: Matthew Thomas - matthew.thomas@goldstandard.org

Funded through the ISEAL Innovations Fund, which is supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO

The challenge

The growing urgency of the climate emergency has led to increased demand for credible guidance to support corporations’ transition towards net-zero carbon emissions. For companies, the largest sources of emissions are often linked to supply chains (Scope 3 emissions). Accounting for such emissions can be challenging for many companies. Large emissions sources may lie far upstream in deep and complex supply chains, leading to obstacles to data availability, quality and traceability.

The project

Gold Standard, in collaboration with a consortium of ISEAL members, will design guidance and systems to quantify emission reductions from supply chain interventions in a credible, consistent way that companies can simply report in their Scope 3 GHG inventories. This innovation would allow companies sourcing certified products to better achieve their emissions targets, while enhancing the value of commodity certification, allowing the benefits of a climate intervention to be transferred along certified supply chains from landscape to purchasers and investors.

Towards landscape impact

Beginning at the landscape level is key. Recognising that emissions of many of the world’s major commodities are calculated using a ‘supply shed’ approach, with values linked to specific regions, the project will explore how supply-shed boundaries can be set at a landscape level, allowing for standardised landscape emission calculations. This would support the value, allocation and transferability of the emissions factors linked to certified commodities sourced from a given landscape, with attributes reportable in line with leading corporate reporting protocols and can drive large-scale collective action for landscape-level funding.

Driving best practice

The guidance produced in this project will be tested with ISEAL members and corporate partners to explore how it can address a range of supply shed issues. Learnings from the project will be shared with ISEAL members and beyond through an online community platform, promoting knowledge sharing and innovation.