A group of 66 companies and industry organizations, including Apple, has issued a joint statement against proposed changes regarding how companies report their clean energy usage. Here are the details.

Companies say proposed changes could backfire

A group that includes companies such as Amazon, Apple, BYD, eBay, Luxshare, and Salesforce made a public statement against significant changes to the rules governing corporate emissions reporting.

These changes are part of a revision process conducted by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP), a widely used framework that defines how companies measure and report their emissions.

The updates focus on Scope 2 guidance regarding how companies will report the electricity they purchase and use.

Under current rules, companies can match their electricity consumption with clean energy on an annual basis; typically using renewable energy certificates generated in the same year within the grid.

From the GHG Protocol proposal:

The proposed revisions, recommended by the Scope 2 Technical Working Group and approved by the Independent Standards Board to move forward with a public consultation process, aim to address the challenges of the current situation by requiring certificates to be matched with consumption on an hourly basis and supplied from deliverable grid regions. This approach is consistent with how energy markets balance supply and demand on an hourly basis within defined boundaries.

In other words, the proposed changes would require companies to match their electricity consumption with clean energy on an hourly basis and ensure that this energy comes from the same grid or regions where it can be physically supplied.

According to the GHGP, the idea behind the change is to enhance the accuracy of emissions reporting by ensuring that companies only demand clean energy that can genuinely support their operations.

In their statements, companies argue that these stricter requirements should remain optional rather than mandatory, indicating that companies should be allowed to voluntarily adopt hourly and location-based matching.

The group warns that making the new requirements mandatory could weaken participation in voluntary clean energy programs and slow down investments in new projects:

To ensure critical climate progress, we must get this revision right. We strongly encourage the GHGP to improve the current guidance but not to mandate a change that threatens participation in this voluntary market, which is a cornerstone of decarbonization across nearly all sectors of the economy. Revised guidance should promote greater clean energy procurement and enable more effective corporate action, rather than hinder it.

Follow this link to read the full public statement against the GHGP’s Scope 2 guidance revisions.