Mapping the landscape of corporate avoided emissions methodologies

5 August 2025

In the context of increasing disclosures of avoided emissions at the corporate level, Senior Research Fellow Michelle O’Keeffe and Professor Matthew Brander investigate the landscape of methodologies that underpin these disclosures. The research is timely given the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s upcoming review process and calls from a number of actors for better recognition of mitigation contributions.

an industrial site with three tall chimneys billowing smoke into a clear blue sky

A growing practice

Increasing numbers of companies are disclosing estimates at the corporate level for the avoided emissions caused by their products and services, with 1,244 companies reporting avoided emissions to CDP in 2013 and 2,397 in 2022. These estimates are distinct from those for the voluntary carbon market which utilises project level accounting methods, or life cycle assessments of individual products. Instead, they are intended to capture the overall positive climate contribution that a company makes through the provision of its products and services that exists outside of its emissions inventory. However, at the same time there appears to be a proliferation of different methodologies and guidance documents for the quantification of avoided emissions, creating a crowded and complex landscape, along with a range of terminology.

A lack of academic research

Despite the recent trend for quantifying avoided emissions there is relatively little in the academic literature on this topic. The extant literature is dominated by case studies within the field of life cycle assessment or avoided emissions from policies or management techniques at the macro level (sector, national, or global levels). Where the academic literature provides more analysis of methodological development is in the related field of handprint methodologies. Where these methodologies differ from the consideration of avoided emissions for corporate disclosure is in the range of sustainability impacts that they aim to incorporate, the intention to reach a “net” assessment and inclusion of the positives from reducing the footprint of the disclosing organisation. Where authors have explored avoided emissions from a methodological perspective, the mapping process has been selective and not extensive.

A comprehensive mapping exercise from expert knowledge, literature and practice

The research undertaken comprises a comprehensive mapping exercise utilising a database of corporate disclosures, alongside expert knowledge and literature searches to support wider method discovery. It provides two related outputs: a. a comprehensive mapping of the existing methodologies for quantifying avoided emissions and their key characteristics and b. an overview of which published methodologies companies are using to quantify their avoided emissions reported to CDP.

A complex and crowded landscape

48 methodologies have been identified with a number of different actors engaging in their development. This evolution of avoided emissions accounting methodologies has been occurring since 2005, with an upward trend in methodological development in recent years. Whilst a reliance on the more established fields of project and product accounting is evident, there are growing numbers of methodologies which are designed to address accounting issues at the full corporate level. Such methodologies consider aspects such as allocation and cherry picking which will be essential in building trust in the resulting avoided emissions data.

Implications for standardisation

The increasing instances of corporate level reporting of avoided emissions and the continued proliferation of methodologies from a range of actors corroborates a growing importance of this form of accounting. However, there are challenges with regard to comparability given the large pool from which methodologies are taken. Whilst the proliferation of proprietary methodologies indicates a lack of a clear preferred methodology coming to the fore there are some methodologies with relatively high levels of adoption within the group of companies responding to CDP. These are designed for broad adoption and apply at a sector-agnostic, full corporate level and could form the backbone of any future standardisation processes.

The reality of practice

Companies are clearly motivated to report on the avoided emissions enabled by their products and services. However, the significant proportion of companies not reporting a published methodology for their avoided emissions quantification as well as those citing inappropriate methodologies highlights a cause for concern with regard to data quality within these disclosures. This is perhaps why a number of financial sector methodologies have arisen in recent years; for those wanting to construct portfolios based on climate mitigation opportunities there is a need for reliable and standardised data which appears to be lacking.

Recommendations for the Greenhouse Gas (GHG)Protocol

There is a clear demand for avoided emissions accounting and it is evident that the current suite of protocols guiding the process are not supporting high quality data. Recognising the accounting differences between inventory and intervention accounting, it is therefore recommended that the GHG Protocol incorporate a standard for avoided emissions accounting into their suite of guidance for corporations with a view to producing a separate and robust corporate reporting opportunity. Methodologies already developed by GHG Protocol partners WBCSD and WRI could provide a good starting point for this.