By David Bamford, Future Energy Partners

Countries and Companies have in common the need to monitor, measure and report their GHG emissions. Countries with respect to in-country activity sectors, companies with respect to their own operations and their supply chain.

The UK has reported GHG Emissions since 1990 with the most recent (BEIS) report being ‘final’ to the end of 2020. Reporting is by sector – Transport, Energy Supply, Business, Residential, Agriculture, Waste Management, Industrial Processes, Public and Land Use, Land Use Change & Forestry.

For some reasons over the last 2 or 3 years, the ‘granularity’ has been reduced – for example, data on specific industries such as cement or steel making is more difficult to find. There is now a focus on performance against government targets, international comparisons and so on.

Whilst country-specific reporting is common for OECD countries, it is only recently that developing nations have ‘stepped up to the plate’. However, there is significant progress…..

For example, Uganda (2019) and Liberia (2020) made their first submissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Each of these submissions contains a report on GHG Emissions.

Uganda followed this up in 2020 with support from Conservation International, which said its commitments to reaching GHG targets had seen “a major boost following the official handover of a robust GHG Inventory and Monitoring, Reporting Verification (MRV) systems on June 16th and the online graduation of 60+ national experts on GHG data management..”

We suggest it is important that building a robust GHG Inventory – with verified monitoring, measuring and reporting – is relatively easy to do and follows best-in-class practices. Measurement is in our opinion absolutely critical!

Underpinned by a robust GHG Inventory, one can then begin to ask searching questions; for example, is the persistent decline since 1990 in UK GHG Emissions from ‘Industrial Processes’ due to Mitigation or to the ‘exporting’ of emissions as manufacturing moved outside the UK?

Equally, if a GHG Inventory is weak or lacking in transparency, as with many Companies, one can question whether Mitigation promises actually amount to much!

Future Energy Partners ‘knows what good looks like’ – was instrumental in the Uganda and Liberia projects - and can also help build digital technology applications that facilitate the building of best-in-class inventories.

 If you are interested in discussing how Future Energy Partners can you improve your sustainability reporting, please let us know by filling in this form.

KeyFacts Energy Industry Directory: Future Energy Partners