The mission and goals of the Climate Action and Accounting SIG include "to turn this network into action under a common open source project that defines shared protocols, standards, and platform tools for a globally integrated climate accounting system to be operationalized."
This working group will focus particularly on the "protocols and standards" that will enable consistent climate accounting.
We coordinate most of the work for this working group through the bimonthly Standards WG call. The work plan for the working group is set out in this document. The most practical way to get involved is to join this call. Please check the calendar for the next call.
The 2023 work plan involves:
For the latest version of our taxonomy of protocols, standards, methodologies and certifications, head over to this page. The taxonomy is by no means complete yet, so feel free to add, improve and expand! You'll find some TODOs at the bottom of the page.
For the latest version of our ontology and its application guide, check out this page. You will find a bunch of TODOs there that you can pick up and run with, e.g., embedding our ontology into the ISO/IEC Basic Formal Ontology (BFO).
Some further results and ideas are taking shape under the New ideas, debates and discussions page. If you like to go down rabbit holes or debating things, this page is for you.
The best way to start contributing is, however, by joining our biweekly calls. Please check the calendar for the next call.
The term 'standard' is used in a variety of contexts - even within the scope of the CA2-SIG a variety of things are denoted with the term 'standard'. These include:
technical standards like those of the W3C;
accounting standards, including:
the standards used for compliance purposes in different jurisdictions (e.g., the CDM project standard, California Air Resources Board (CARB));
voluntary standards like the Verra's Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), the Gold Standard, Social Carbon, American Carbon Registry (ACR), Climate Action Reserve (CAR), and The Plan Vivo Foundation;
standards for entity-level accounting within various scopes;
standards for local/regional/national inventories;
environmental performance standards like those of the IFC;
standards related to products; and
standards for accounting for policy impacts.
Standards are used for many things, among which:
personal climate footprinting
product/service footprinting
entity accounting (scope 1, 2 and 3)
regional accounting
policy impact assessments
Standards are relevant at different phases of the climate accounting process:
Entities: This is the problem of identity. We mean the identity of people, organisations and things. It is needed to connect an unambiguous identifier to all the entities involved in the accounting process. In the case of businesses, this may be difficult because businesses may have complicated structures of ownership and control (see for example Chapter 3 of the GHG Protocol: Corporate Accounting Standard).
Activities and events: Agents do things that affect their surroundings at some point in time.
Counterfactuals: This is the problem of what would have happened if certain decisions had not been taken or certain actions had not been undertaken.
There are other bodies that create the types of standards mentioned above. This working group will be more concerned with how such standards themselves and compliance to these standards are encoded and captured in a distrubuted ledger and how such representations can be used.
The CA2-SIG will not act as an authority that compels entities to engage in specific actions.
The standards to be generated by this working group will enable agents to clearly communicate the implications of their actions. This will enable others to have a clear understanding of the state of affairs regarding the activities and states covered by the standards.
Find the most generic articulation of what a standard, method and transaction is and develop protobuffer examples of each.
Namespaced Merkle tree
Protobuf examples
Refer to this page for more information.
1) Start by subscribing to the Climate SIG mailing list for updates and meeting notifications.
2) Add your name to the active members list below.
3) Join the CA2-SIG Standards WG calls that are held on every other Tuesday of the month at 8 AM US Pacific time (UTC-07:00 America/Los Angeles). Please check the calendar for the next call.
Join the CA2-SIG Standards WG calls that are held on every other Tuesday of the month at 8 AM US Pacific time (UTC-07:00 America/Los Angeles). Please check the calendar for the next call.
Name | Company |
---|---|
Christiaan Pauw | Nova Institute |
Alex Howard | (Independent) |
Alfonso Govela | Hyperledger Latinoamerica Chapter |
Kyle Robinson | Brairtech Consulting Inc. |
Name | Company |
---|---|
Tom Baumann | Climate Chain Coalition |
Martin Wainstein | Yale Openlab |
John Barassi | Ohvation |
Si Chen | Open Source Strategies, Inc. |
Sherwood Moore | ICANN |
Jeff Pribich | Independent |