“It’s not just to have the number, which in itself is pretty meaningless,” says Joe Bergeson, Sustainability Science Researcher at Amazon. “We want insights that generate action, to enable business leaders to act and figure out how to reduce their footprint.”
The Climate Pledge does not define how each signatory should measure and report their emissions. Each signatory signatory will follow best practices to achieve accountability to their stakeholders. For measuring emissions, signatories to The Climate Pledge are encouraged to use existing, robust greenhouse gas reporting standards, such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, but may choose where to report and the reporting framework.
“Data is everything. What you can’t measure, you can’t control.” Guruprakash Sastry, Regional Head of Green Initiatives at Infosys, a Climate Pledge signatory.
The commitment to measuring and regularly reporting emissions requires absolute clarity across direct and indirect emissions (Scope 1, 2 and 3). This complete carbon footprint picture should be delivered with practical and ethical rigor.
Amazon, for example, uses an automated carbon accounting program to measure emissions across its whole business, using measurement models across finance, transport, electricity, packaging, and devices. Its output is a detailed annual report; but more importantly, the program enables the real-time data capture and analysis that is fundamental to delivering its business-wide carbon reduction goals. Learn more about Amazon’s carbon accounting program here.