Ministry Formulates Guidelines for Companies to Calculate GHG Emissions

On July 8, 2003, Japan's Ministry of the Environment (MOE) released a draft set of guidelines (in Japanese) for Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Calculations, for use by businesses. To encourage voluntary efforts by businesses in activities to reduce GHG emissions, the MOE considers it important to establish and promote standard calculation methods. To this end, it has been deliberating on methods that would be broadly applicable.

Currently, calculation methods used by companies vary widely. Many large companies release information on their efforts to reduce emissions, but few small- and medium-sized enterprises do so.

Part One of the Guidelines ("Framework of Emissions Calculation") is about the organizational scope and range of activities to be covered in calculations, as well as the preferred methods to calculate emissions. Part Two ("Methods for Emissions Calculation") is a manual that enables companies to calculate their actual emissions, showing specific categories of activities and their emissions coefficient.

The MOE expects these guidelines to help promote efforts by companies to calculate their own emissions. It will use them in a pilot project on GHG emissions trading, to be implemented during the current fiscal year. The MOE plans to test their suitability and effectiveness during this project and will revise them later if necessary.




Posted: 2003/09/27 11:51:50 AM
Japanese version