Addressing the Need for Accurate and Comparable Greenhouse Gas Data: The COMET Framework

While companies and governments face mounting pressure to set and achieve climate targets, global efforts to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have yet to address a persistent obstacle: the absence of a standardized way to accurately measure and compare GHG emissions from different products and companies. There is currently no regulatory body that verifies the accuracy of published GHG data, nor any widely adopted standard for how companies should calculate their GHG emissions. There is no agreement on what qualifies as low-carbon goods or investments, nor any common repercussions for misrepresenting GHG data. To this end, the GHG data that is currently being published and used by companies and other stakeholders is vastly underregulated and potentially damaging to global climate efforts.

Without a consistent way to measure and discuss GHG emissions, there is also no consistent way to measure and discuss any progress in decarbonization efforts. There is currently no consistent way to measure GHG reductions by companies, nor any common way to assess the feasibility of net-zero pathways, the benefits of low-carbon goods, the viability of sustainable investments, the feasibility of new decarbonization technologies, the cost of carbon, or any of the other mechanisms the world is depending on to meet global climate goals. Thus, decarbonization and sustainability efforts on a national and global scale will not succeed without a new foundation of trusted and auditable climate data.