GHG Protocol Public Consultations Public Comment DEADLINE extended to January 31, 2026

December 19, 2025

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(Greenhouse Gas Protocol) Public consultation is a critical component of GHG Protocol’s Standard Development and Revision Procedure, providing an opportunity for all stakeholders to contribute feedback on key topics related to GHG Protocol standards and guidance.  

Two public consultations are actively underway: One focuses on updates to the Scope 2 Guidance (2015) which addresses inventory accounting, while the other seeks feedback on consequential accounting methods for estimating avoided emissions from electricity-sector actions, which will feed into work underway in the Actions and Market Instruments workstream.

The 60-day public consultation period for both proposed updates began on October 20, 2025.

UPDATE: The public consultation period for both proposed updates has been extended to January 31, 2026 in response to stakeholder feedback.

How To Participate

Please review the consultation materials and submit any feedback through the respective online survey forms by the above deadline. Please note, there are separate forms for each consultation.

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This document repository stores records of Steering Committee, Independent Standards Board, and Technical Working Group meetings to ensure transparency and accountability.

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Public Consultations Frequently Asked Questions

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For questions about the standards and guidance under development, please contact us.

Scope 2 Public Consultation

For the Scope 2 Public Consultation, all feedback will be analyzed, and work will be undertaken to review and revise the Scope 2 Standard in consultation with the Scope 2 Technical Working Group as necessary. A second public consultation on scope 2 topics will follow in 2026, with final publication of the new standard expected in 2027.

Electricity-Sector Consequential Methods Public Consultation

For the Electricity-Sector Consequential Methods Public Consultation, stakeholder input will be synthesized and used to inform the Actions and Market Instrument (AMI) Technical Working Group which will develop requirements for reporting emissions impacts outside corporate inventories.

Please review this blog post for more in-depth information about how the public consultation process works.

GHG Protocol Public Consultation Webinar: Scope 2 and Electricity Sector Consequential Accounting

The GHG Protocol hosted a webinar on October 27, where the Scope 2 Secretariat outlined the inclusive process leading up to the public consultations, shared an overview of the key topics and explained how stakeholders can participate. A PDF of the slide deck can be viewed here.

Related Resources

Press Release: GHG Protocol Opens Public Consultations on Scope 2 and Electricity-Sector Consequential Accounting (Oct 20, 2025)
Scope 2 Standard Development Plan
Public Consultation Frequently Asked Questions
Blog Posts
- GHG Protocol Public Consultations Now Open: Scope 2 and Electricity-Sector Consequential Accounting (Oct 20, 2025) 
- Upcoming Scope 2 Public Consultation: Hourly Matching and Deliverability | GHG Protocol (Oct 14, 2025)
- Upcoming Scope 2 Public Consultation: Overview of Revisions | GHG Protocol (Sept 29, 2025)
- Scope 2 Standard Advances: ISB Approves Consultation on Market- and Location-Based Revisions; Signals Cross-Sectoral Work Ahead on Avoided Emissions | GHG Protocol (Aug 1, 2025)
- Scope 2 Technical Working Group Progress Update | GHG Protocol (Jun 11, 2025)

READ MORE

Related articles

RELEASE: GHG Protocol Opens Public Consultations on Scope 2 and Electricity Sector Consequential Accounting (Greenhouse Gas Protocol)
ANNOUNCEMENT: ISO-GHG Protocol to Jointly Develop New Product-Level GHG Accounting Standard; Call for Experts to Participate in Joint Working Group together with ISO Experts (Greenhouse Gas Protocol)
Frequently Asked Questions: Scope 2 and Electricity Sector Consequential Accounting Public Consultations (Greenhouse Gas Protocol)
ISO and GHG Protocol announce strategic partnership to deliver unified global standards for greenhouse gas emissions accounting (International Organization for Standardization)

Excerpt from Greenhouse Gas Protocol : Proposed revisions aim to improve accuracy while keeping reporting clear, consistent, and manageable for organizations of all sizes.

Washington, D.C., October 20, 2025 — Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) today announced the launch of a 60-day period for two public consultations. One consultation focuses on updates to the Scope 2 Guidance (2015) which addresses inventory accounting, while the other seeks feedback on consequential accounting methods for estimating avoided emissions from electricity-sector actions. These are the first public consultations in a broader effort to update GHG Protocol’s suite of corporate standards and guidance.

This public consultation period marks an important milestone in ensuring that corporate greenhouse gas inventories remain accurate, comparable, and useful for decision making as energy systems and disclosure requirements evolve worldwide.

Approved by the GHG Protocol Independent Standards Board (ISB), the proposed updates to the Scope 2 Guidance (2015) reflect nearly three years of technical development and stakeholder engagement. In line with GHG Protocol’s Standard Development and Revision Procedure, the proposed revisions were developed in collaboration with a Technical Working Group that represents a diverse set of experts from business, academia and civil society. The revisions were further informed by feedback from the Independent Standards Board.

Since its publication a decade ago, the Scope 2 Guidance (2015) has become the leading global framework for accounting and reporting corporate emissions from purchased electricity. Many mandatory disclosure regimes have come to use GHG Protocol’s standards including the IFRS S2, EU ESRS/CSRD, and California SB 253.

The proposed updates respond to today’s changing energy landscape and evolving user needs. They are designed to improve accounting accuracy, keep GHG reporting methods consistent and align with how electricity is produced and delivered.

“A decade after publishing the Scope 2 standard, an update is both timely and necessary. This revision is an opportunity to make improvements based on how the standard has been applied in practice and how power systems have become cleaner, more complex, and more interconnected than ever before,” said Alexander Bassen, Chair of Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Independent Standards Board. “Public input gathered over the next two months will play a major role in shaping the next version. We want to hear from all stakeholders on how to strengthen the guidance so it remains science-based, practical, credible, and relevant for the decade ahead.”

Strengthening Accuracy and Integrity While Responding to Users’ Needs

The proposed revisions to the Scope 2 Guidance (2015) retain the existing Scope 2 Standard’s dual location-based and market-based reporting methods, while introducing targeted improvements to enhance accuracy and transparency across both.

A central feature of the proposal is a new hourly matching and deliverability requirement for market-based reporting, which would align emissions claims more closely with the time and place electricity is consumed. This is intended to reduce double counting and ensure reported clean energy purchases more accurately reflect the physical realities of the power grid.

Recognizing that companies vary widely in data access and operational scale, the proposed revisions include multiple measures to help users manage these changes. These include the use of load profiles to approximate hourly data, exemption thresholds for which organizations are covered, a legacy clause for existing contractual commitments, and a multi-year phased implementation timeline.

Consequential Accounting Methods

In parallel, the GHG Protocol is also seeking stakeholder feedback on consequential accounting methods. These methods estimate the system-wide impacts of actions such as clean energy procurement or investment beyond an organization’s operational boundaries. The purpose of maintaining separate reporting for inventory emissions and system-wide impacts would be to preserve the integrity and comparability of corporate inventories, ensuring that reported emissions remain consistent across organizations and over time.

To support this, the Actions and Market Instruments Technical Working Group is developing complementary requirements for quantifying and reporting GHG impacts from projects and market instruments outside corporate inventories. Importantly, reporting these actions separately from Scope 2 would not determine whether or how they “count” toward specific goals or targets. Those determinations remain the responsibility of disclosure or target-setting bodies that use GHG Protocol’s accounting standards.

How Stakeholders Can Participate and Next Steps

The consultation period will run from October 20 through December 19, 2025. Stakeholders can review the consultation documentation and submit feedback through online survey forms. These materials can be accessed on the public consultations landing page.

UPDATE: The public consultation period for both proposed updates has been extended to January 31, 2026 in response to stakeholder feedback.

For the Scope 2 Public Consultation, all feedback will be analyzed and work will be undertaken to review and revise the Scope 2 Standard in consultation with the Scope 2 Technical Working Group as necessary. A second public consultation on scope 2 topics will follow in 2026, with final publication of the new standard expected in 2027.

About Greenhouse Gas Protocol

GHG Protocol's mission is to develop the most credible, accessible, and widely used greenhouse gas accounting and reporting standards and to proactively facilitate their global adoption and implementation. Our vision is that all private and public entities account for their GHG emissions, enabling an acceleration in reductions in line with the global warming limits required by climate science. READ MORE

Excerpt from Greenhouse Gas Protocol: WASHINGTON DC (October 27, 2025) – Following the announcement of a strategic partnership between the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and GHG Protocol to deliver unified global standards for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting in September, the two organizations are launching their first joint working group to develop a new product-level GHG accounting standard.

The standard will be developed under joint governance of ISO and GHG Protocol, with contributions from experts across both organizations. To enable this, ISO Working Group 8 (within Technical Committee 207/Subcommittee 7), will be expanded into a Joint Working Group (JWG) under agreed Terms of Reference. This structure ensures broad participation and technical depth from across the GHG accounting ecosystem.

Building on ISO 14067 and the existing GHG Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard, the new standard will maintain continuity with existing frameworks while advancing toward a unified global methodology. The JWG will in particular seek to leverage and build on existing approaches and new ideas by initiatives in the ecosystem, with the objective of developing a standard which is truly fit-for-purpose in line with the changing needs of corporates, investors and regulators.

GHG Protocol is now calling for experts to join the JWG and help shape a best-in-class standard focused on facilitating practical application.

Background on the Partnership

A key deliverable of the ISO-GHG Protocol strategic partnership is the joint product-level standard that responds to growing demand for granular emissions data across value chains. It will support credible decarbonization strategies, enhance market transparency, and enable implementation of mechanisms such as Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms (CBAMs) through a harmonized methodology.

“This joint product-level standard reflects the deepening of our collaboration with GHG Protocol and our shared commitment to global consistency in GHG accounting. As expectations for accurate product-level emissions data rise, organizations need clear, credible methodologies they can trust and apply. By combining the strengths of both systems and drawing on broad technical expertise, we aim to deliver a standard that supports actionable climate strategies, strengthens market confidence, and enables more effective decarbonization across supply chains,” Sergio Mujica, ISO Secretary General said.

“This announcement marks another step toward global convergence in greenhouse gas accounting under our partnership with ISO. By aligning our efforts and inviting broad participation, we are laying the groundwork for a standard that is coherent, inclusive, and practical. Our shared goal is to ensure that all systems – from traditional approaches to emerging digital infrastructures – can connect to a common methodological foundation,” Geraldine Matchett, Chair, Steering Committee Chair, GHG Protocol said. 

Call for Experts

GHG Protocol is inviting experts with technical knowledge and practical experience in areas such as product-level GHG accounting, life cycle assessment, and value chain emissions to participate in the JWG on behalf of GHG Protocol. The organization also welcome experts working on emerging frameworks to exchange product-related GHG data across the value chain to help shape a standard that is both robust and future-ready.

“Developing a globally relevant product-level GHG standard is a collective effort – we invite experts from across disciplines, sectors, and regions to be part of this. Together, we can build a standard that reflects the complexity of real-world systems and supports effective climate action,” Alexander Bassen, Chair, Independent Standards Board, GHG Protocol said.

How to Apply

Experts are invited to submit an Expression of Interest through this form. Applications are due by November 30th, 2025, but we strongly encourage early submissions. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis to allow for timely onboarding and to help identify and fill any gaps in expertise as the JWG is formed.

The responsibilities, composition, and expectations of the JWG will be outlined in forthcoming Terms of Reference.

For more information about governance and decision-making processes, see Our Governance | GHG Protocol.

For details on the partnership, visit our FAQ: ISO-GHG Protocol Partnership: Frequently Asked Questions | GHG Protocol.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to share your feedback here. READ MORE