Quick Overview

  • The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced on Wednesday (July 29) that they will join forces to merge their respective carbon emissions accounting standards into a single global standard.
  • According to a press release issued that day, this move will integrate the GHG Protocol's Scope 1, 2, and 3 standards and their guidance, along with its "Actions and Market Instruments" workstream, with ISO's 14064-1 greenhouse gas accounting standard.
  • ISO and the GHG Protocol announced a strategic partnership in September 2025, and the harmonization of their carbon accounting standards was proposed in the COP30 action agenda last year. The work is expected to continue until the 2028 global stocktake.

In-Depth Analysis

This announcement comes just one month after ISO launched its standard for developing net-zero transition plans, and as the GHG Protocol appointed former Boston Consulting Group executive Tim Mohin as its first CEO in April of this year.

According to the "Standards Development Plan" released on Wednesday, the finalized accounting standard will be jointly published and co-branded by both organizations. In a FAQ page released on Wednesday, the GHG Protocol stated that a draft of the merged standard is expected to be released for public comment in the second quarter of 2027, with the final joint corporate standard planned for completion in the fourth quarter of 2028.

The two standards-setting bodies plan to divide the guidance into two parts. According to the "Standards Development Plan," the first part of the updated and merged standard will cover general requirements and entity-level greenhouse gas inventories, while the second part will focus on actions and market instruments.

In its FAQ page, the GHG Protocol stated that the merged corporate accounting standard aims to "reduce fragmentation, enhance interoperability, and provide a trusted, unified foundation for climate reporting and decision-making for organizations worldwide."

Mohin — who served as CEO of the Global Reporting Initiative, another goal-setting organization, from 2017 to 2020 — said in the press release that the merged standard is "a significant step toward integrating and harmonizing global greenhouse gas accounting."

"For organizations applying these standards to measure their greenhouse gas emissions, a single corporate standard will streamline reporting processes, reduce duplication of effort, and provide greater consistency across different markets and jurisdictions," Mohin said. "This will, in turn, enable companies to devote more time to emissions reduction actions."

The GHG Protocol also released public feedback on Wednesday regarding its proposed revisions to the Scope 2 standard. The public consultation received more than 1,100 responses, and the carbon accounting standards body said it is exploring multiple reporting pathways to "reflect how different theories of change can best respond" to the wide range of feedback received.