Abstract:

The greenhouse gas (GHG) emission accounting standards for the enterprise is paid much attention by the standard developers all over the world. As the new demands from addressing climate change occurring, some corresponding changes are happening in the GHG emission accounting standardization field. For the international standard, the requirements of accounting and reporting standards on emissions from supply chain of the enterprise are increasing, and the sectorial accounting standards have also come into sight. For the national standard, the GHG emission accounting and reporting standards are more operable with the consideration of the practical situations of existing standards, and measurement bases in the Chinese enterprise and the demands from key-enterprise reporting system and the carbon Emission Trading System in China. Through the comparison of revised ISO 14064-1 standard, ISO 19694 series standards, and GB/T 32150, GB/T 32151 series standards, it is found that all these standards have the quite similar core methods, which could be a good base for the communication and coordination in the future. The differences between these standards include classification of emission sources, data acquisition ways, and some special requirements, which are caused by the differences on scopes and targets of the standards. Although these new changes are conducive to showing the emission characteristics of the enterprises in different markets, regions or sectors, a higher requirement of accounting and reporting on GHG emission is given to the enterprise. It would be recommended for Chinese enterprises to concentrate on the core accounting approach and to establish the basic data collection system. Meanwhile, it would be recommended to notice the differences of these standards’requirements and to build the relevant reporting capacity. The national standard developers should focus on the applicability and operability of the GHG accounting standards, and gradually develop multi-stage standards according to the national GHG emission management policies and measures.

Key words: greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, accounting standard, enterprise