A coalition of global companies across the world’s most carbon-intensive industrial supply chains has launched an initiative to develop a ledger-based carbon accounting framework to provide accurate, verifiable, and timely company and product data on CO2 emissions from electricity, fuel, steel, concrete, and chemicals businesses.
Called Carbon Measures, the coalition aims to eliminate double accounting and fill gaps where information is lacking. It also seeks to advance policies to unlock innovation and competition and fund market-based solutions to reduce carbon emissions, according to a news release announcing the organization’s launch on 20 October.
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” Darren Woods, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, a founding member of Carbon Measures, said. “The first step to reducing global emissions is to know where they’re coming from—and, today, we don’t have an accurate system to do this.”
“A standard carbon emissions accounting methodology provides a necessary foundation for a framework that will encourage competition, leverage each company’s strengths, and mobilize market forces to meet the challenge of growing energy demand while lowering emissions,” Woods added.
An Industry Collaboration
Joining ExxonMobil as founding members are ADNOC, Air Liquide, Banco Santander, BASF, Bayer, CF Industries, EQT Corp., Ernst & Young (EY), Global Infrastructure Partners (a part of BlackRock), Honeywell, Linde, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsui & Co., Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, NextEra Energy, Nucor, the Port of Rotterdam, and Vale.
The coalition has named Amy Brachio as CEO, leveraging her 30 years at EY, where she most recently served as global vice chair of sustainability and led the firm’s 40% emissions-reduction goal.
"Good data leads to good decisions, but for decades, precise and comparable data has proven something of a holy grail in emissions tracking,” Brachio said, adding that the current system is “overly reliant on estimates and dependent on voluntary commitments and good intentions to drive market action.”
The coalition aims to replace that with “a system that will unleash markets and competition, unlocking investment and accelerating the pace of emissions reduction—ultimately driving the kind of enduring change the world demands,” she said.
Carbon Measures has created an expert panel on carbon accounting in partnership with the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce, which will develop detailed product-level implementation roadmaps to foster real-world adoption of its findings.
François Jackow, CEO Air Liquide Group, highlighted in his remarks that “collaboration of business with academics, experts, civil society, and policymakers is the very essence of the Carbon Measures initiative.”