Two standards have started using the same word

Our earlier EAC special report 1 read SBTi's Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 and set it out like this.

Where a reduction obtained through a market instrument is not reflected in the physical GHG inventory, it is reported separately (p.47). And the standard defines the category as a market instrument and a commodity certificate (p.88, p.82).

GHG Protocol uses the same word

The AMI proposal in this integration announcement makes the same separation into the reporting structure itself. And the word it uses is the same — commodity certificate.

Two different bodies, in two different documents, giving one category the same name and putting it in the same place.

What that means

Writing certificate-secured reductions apart from physical emissions is becoming the standards' basic structure rather than a special case.

One is a target validation body and the other an accounting standard-setter, and they arrived at the same conclusion by different routes.

So what to prepare

The integrated standard goes to consultation in Q2 2027 and is published after that. There is time.

Two things, though, cannot be made later however much time there is.

One, past records. Physical box or market-based box, the evidence comes from journeys already made. What remains once a run is over is an estimate.

Two, the system for getting data in. What eats the time in Scope 3 is not the calculation but collecting data from suppliers, and that system is not built by one project.

There is no need to wait for the standard to change. Whichever version arrives, it will read the same records.

This article expands one section of LCS international standards analysis 1, Two Standards Become One. The full report works from GHG Protocol's published announcement and partnership FAQ as primary sources, and marks anything still at proposal stage as such.