At The Payne Firm, we realize that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions differ dramatically from one company to another. Using the following tools, we will help create a tailored GHG Management Program specific to your company’s actual needs.

Establishing Business Objectives for Your GHG Management Program
Since there is no national or international standard for inventorying, reporting or trading GHG emissions, it is important to establish a procedure for this Program that is consistent with your business objectives. Is this Program, for example, being developed to help facilitate a corporate GHG risk management program or to participate in voluntary reporting initiatives, including reporting to stakeholders? Does the company wish to participate in GHG trading markets in order to sell credits for profit or buy credits for higher emission limits? Most likely, the reasons for developing the Program are some combination of all of these.

Regardless of the motivation, companies should have the end goals in mind when putting their Program together. The Payne Firm can help develop a Program that, while designed to meet your specific business objectives, is also sufficiently flexible to support a variety of end users and uses, and one that considers how your objectives might change over time.

And, since The Payne Firm regularly tracks the evolving national and world standards, we can also help you design a program that will not become obsolete overnight should a new standard be adopted

Establishing Geographic, Organizational and Operational Boundaries
The Payne Firm will also assist your company in defining the geographic, organizational, and operational boundaries of your GHG Management Program. It will be important, for example, to decide whether the Program will apply to all of your sites or just those covered by a voluntary reporting program. Consideration must also be given to issues of ownership and control of GHG emission sources, which operating units should be included, and what types of direct and indirect GHG emissions should be addressed.

Establishing Base Year Emissions or Baseline Emissions
Establishing base year emissions, an emissions baseline, or both, to use as a benchmark for comparing future performance is a crucial part of the Program. This data can reflect such issues as structure changes in the organization and the transfer of ownership or management control over the emission sources.

Identifying and Calculating GHG Emission
The Payne Firm will help your company identify the GHG emission sources that will be included in your management program. These can include both direct and indirect sources within the following categories:

• Direct Stationary Combustion Sources
• Direct Mobile Combustion Sources
• Indirect Co-Generation Emissions
• Indirect Electricity Emissions
• Direct Process Emissions
• Direct Fugitive Emissions

After identifying the subject emission sources, The Payne Firm will work with you to develop and implement an emissions calculation approach that considers all of these issues as well as the nature of your specific processes and the data you already have available.

Accounting for GHG Reductions
The data that results from the identification and calculation phase can be used in a number of ways to meet your needs and to report GHG emissions over time for a variety of geographic or operational units.

Verifying and Reporting GHG Emissions and Reduction Credits
For some companies, the criteria for reporting GHG emissions may be mandated by the reporting organizations in which they participate. Others may have no frame of reference whatsoever. Regardless, The Payne Firm can help you develop reporting processes that are relevant, complete, consistent, transparent, and accurate.

Verifying corporate GHG emission inventories is still an evolving practice. Without having generally accepted GHG accounting and reporting standards, verifying dramatically changes from company to company and from one reporting organization or trading exchange to another. Therefore, your individual objectives and the organizations or stakeholders to whom you expect to report data must be considered in developing this aspect of your management program.

The Payne Firm constantly monitors the standard of practice in these areas. In fact, the Firm is the only technical adviser to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) task force on this issue. As a result, we are uniquely positioned and qualified to help you design and implement a verification and reporting process that is responsive to the evolving standard.

Banking and Trading Reduction Credits
There are many strategic and tactical decisions regarding whether and how to trade or bank your emission reduction credits, and The Payne Firm can offer invaluable counsel. We understand the various trading forums, both online and offline, which are available and can help you sort through the advantages and disadvantages of each. We also understand the relationship between uncertainties in your emission calculations and how trading exchanges can respond to that uncertainty. As a result, we can assist you in evaluating the cost-benefit associated with managing that uncertainty, before someone else brings it up during a trade.