Mark Trexler

Several years ago, the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WRI/WBCSD) collaborated on a stakeholder process to develop a standardized protocol for voluntary corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories. The resulting WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocol has been widely accepted by the GHG community, and identifies three potential "scopes" for a corporate GHG inventory.

Scope 1 encompasses a company's direct GHG emissions, whether from on-site energy production or other industrial activities. Scope 2 accounts for energy that is purchased from off-site (primarily electricity, but can also include energy like...

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You'd be surprised. Just last week I spoke at an industry conference where a good part of a day was dedicated to the issue of global warming. There were three individual talks, and then a panel, totaling more than six hours. I was part of the panel addressing how companies are responding to the business risks and opportunities associated with global warming.

The three individual talks, however, were notable in light of the question posed above. The first talk, by a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, could have been lifted from the pages of Michael Creighton’s "State of Fear" novel (the scientific failings of which are extensively...

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Q: What Happens When I Click on "Fly Green" at Expedia.com or "Be a Hero, Go Zero" at Travelocity.com?

A: There's been a lot of interest in this question. I received calls on the subject from the New York Times and National Public Radio within the space of 30 minutes one recent morning! Although the Better World Club first gave air travelers the opportunity to go carbon neutral for their flights more than five years ago, you know the subject has "arrived" when it shows up on Travelocity and Expedia!

What Happens When You Click on the Link?

At Travelocity.com, you first have to make sure you find the link at the...

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You may want to take a look at my column from June 2006, which addressed a reader's question about the ability to sell carbon reductions associated with a business moving from a high-carbon intensity power grid to a low-carbon intensity grid. That question was pretty easy to answer; this one encompasses more permutations that readers may find relevant to their own situations. I've presented three such cases here:

Case 1: You have committed to retiring the environmental benefits of your renewable energy purchase. If you have purchased 100% renewable energy as part of your environmental branding or market positioning, and...

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The simple answer is "probably not." But the question raises interesting issues that are worth a brief exploration.

It is true that one's greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint could differ depending on the source of the power in your area. If electricity is a big part of your footprint, you'd be including about a ton of CO2 for each MWh consumed in a coal-based power grid vs. almost nothing in a hydro-based power grid. So if you moved from one city to another, your GHG footprint might well look different. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that you could create marketable credits from the difference in the two footprints. There...

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The European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) did, at first glance, look like it went off a cliff over the last two weeks, with the price of a carbon dioxide (CO2) allowance (EUA) falling from $38/ton to $14/ton. What happened is that countries within the EU began to report their actual emissions for 2005. Since 2005 was the first year of operation for the ETS, this is the first time we've had real emissions figures for member countries. Those reports showed that emissions in several EU countries totaled less than what observers had expected. Thus, companies and countries will need significantly fewer emissions...

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The Voluntary Carbon Standard is a new standard intended to cover greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction projects developed for voluntary markets. It is being promoted by the International Emissions Trading Association and The Climate Group, and is in response to the absence of a universally recognized voluntary standard for carbon offsets. According to The Climate Group, "the Voluntary Carbon Standard will ensure that all voluntary emissions reductions that meet its criteria are additional and represent real, quantifiable, and permanent emission reductions."

I've addressed the issue of "additionality" of GHG emissions reduction projects in previous columns, and it...

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PG&E, a California investor-owned utility, has proposed to launch a first-of-its-kind demonstration program that would give residential customers the opportunity to become "climate neutral" by offsetting the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with heating and powering their homes. Under the program, the average customer (using 540 kWh of electricity and 45 therms of natural gas per month) would pay about $4.50 more per month on his or her utility bill.

PG&E's tariff filing with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) targets a goal of collecting approximately $20 million over the three-year demonstration period to offset about two million tons...

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