Climate change

Heightened concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the earth's atmosphere are now widely accepted as being the main cause of climate change and global warming.

ISO 14064 and ISO 14065:2007 provide an internationally agreed framework for measuring GHG emissions and verifying claims made about them so that "a tonne of carbon is always a tonne of carbon". They thus support programmes to reduce GHG emissions and also emissions trading programmes.

ISO 14064 comprises three standards covering GHG emission quantification, monitoring and reporting, and for the validation and verification of claims made about GHG emissions.

ISO 14064 was developed as a solution to the problems posed by the fact that governments, business corporations and voluntary initiatives were using a number of approaches to account for organization (and project level) GHG emissions and removals with no generally accepted validation or verification protocols.

The complementary standard ISO 14065:2007 provides requirements for bodies that undertake GHG validation or verification using ISO 14064 or other relevant standards or specifications.

The aim of GHG validation or verification bodies is to give confidence to parties that rely upon a GHG assertion or claim, for example regulators or investors, that the bodies providing the declarations are competent to do so, and have systems in place to manage impartially and to provide the required level of assurance on a consistent basis.

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