GHG Protocol Issues Interim Guidance on Biomethane Certificate Accounting

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol has issued an interim communication clarifying that it does not yet have definitive guidance on how companies should account for biomethane certificates in GHG inventories. Companies purchasing such certificates are advised to consult auditors and relevant target-setting or regulatory programmes in their jurisdiction while awaiting formal guidance.

Biomethane, also known as renewable natural gas, is biogenic gas treated to be interchangeable with fossil natural gas and injected into common carrier pipelines. A draft annex on biomethane included in the September 2022 pilot draft of the Land Sector and Removals Guidance proposed that companies report combustion emissions based on the grid-average mix of fossil and biogenic gas, excluding certificate claims from scope 1 accounting. Stakeholder feedback prompted GHG Protocol to withdraw the annex and pursue a broader review of market-based accounting approaches across sectors.

The Scope 2 Guidance published in 2015 introduced a market-based method for accounting purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling, allowing companies to claim environmental attributes from contractual instruments such as renewable energy certificates. The debate over biomethane mirrors earlier debates about the validity of energy attribute certificates for electricity. Extending a market-based method to gas, aviation fuels, agricultural commodities, maritime shipping, steel and aluminium requires coordinated governance decisions about additionality, causality and environmental integrity.

GHG Protocol will address biomethane and broader market-based accounting approaches through its corporate standards update process, incorporating feedback from nearly 350 survey responses and over two dozen proposals received on the topic. Until guidance is issued, companies must separately report biogenic CO2 emissions, scope 1 and 2 methane and nitrous oxide from bioenergy combustion, scope 3 upstream emissions from purchased bioenergy, and any avoided emissions from counterfactual scenarios. The final Land Sector and Removals Guidance, expected in 2024, will provide further direction on biogenic emission accounting.

Key figure — 350 responses and 24+ proposals received on market-based accounting approaches