Carbon accounting7 min read

Scope 2 dual reporting: two numbers, one meter

Somebody senior will eventually look at two Scope 2 figures on the same page, for the same year, for the same buildings, and ask which one is right. It is a completely reasonable question and it has an unsatisfying answer: both, because they are not measuring the same thing.

Scope 2 dual reporting is a requirement, not a presentation option. The GHG Protocol requires a location-based figure and a market-based figure, and dual reporting is mandatory wherever contractual instruments are available in the market. Organizations that publish one number and quietly drop the other are not simplifying. They are omitting.

What each number is measuring

The consumption figure is identical in both. What changes is the emission factor applied to it, and the question that factor is built to answer.