Mark,

This is quite good.

Perhaps you should blog it.

In fact, a blog may be useful in promoting your work on sustainability.

Best,


Joe
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Mark W. McElroy" <mmcelroy@...>
> All:
>
> As some of you may know, researchers at Carnegie Mellon recently
> published an article in the Aug. 15 issue of Environmental Science &
> Technology (http://pubs.acs.org/journals/esthag/) in which they
> claimed that two-thirds of U.S. industries overlook 75 percent of
> their greenhouse gas emissions using current calculation methods
> (e.g., GRI or the GRI Greenhouse Gas Protocol). This is generally
> because most companies report only their own (direct) emissions, and
> not the emissions of their suppliers, or their proportionate share of
> the emissions of their suppliers. While this may be true, it
> completely sidesteps the question of whether or not companies ought
> to include the emissions of their suppliers in their own reports. I
> happen to think they should not.
>
> Just as we sometimes say “the polluter should pay”, so too can we say
> that “the emitter should report”. Contrary to what some say – that
> businesses should be responsible for measuring and reporting the
> greenhouse gas emissions of their suppliers – businesses should only
> feel compelled to measure and report their own emissions. There are
> six important reasons for this:
>
> Consumers of energy do not control its production, and should not,
> therefore, be accountable for measuring and reporting related
> emissions as though they do. People are not responsible for the
> consequences of actions taken by anyone but themselves, and should
> not be compelled, therefore, to engage in processes of accountability
> as if they are.
> Expecting consumers to report on emissions generated by their
> upstream suppliers implicitly shifts accountability for mitigating
> such emissions from suppliers to consumers, thereby absolving
> suppliers of the responsibility to reduce their own emissions. The
> effect on actions (or inactions) taken by suppliers of related energy
> supplies is not particularly helpful, given the global warming state
> of the world.
> Impending greenhouse gas regulations and existing cap and trade
> systems all focus on direct emitters of such gases, not their
> customers. Any practice or protocol that shifts the burden of
> reporting from direct emitters to their customers is, or will be,
> wildly at odds with the direction of mainstream regulation.
> It is completely unrealistic to think that a business is going to go
> to the trouble of reaching upstream into all braches of its supply
> chain, all the way back to multiple points of initial commodity
> extraction, to determine what its share of its suppliers’ and its
> suppliers’ suppliers’ emissions are; just as it is completely
> unrealistic to think that the same suppliers will be willing to do so.
> If the purpose of protocols designed to capture the emissions of an
> organization’s upstream suppliers is to understand the overall
> emissions of an industry or a product set, there are much easier and
> more practical ways to do so, than placing the burden on countless
> individual companies. Using existing life cycle assessment (LCA)
> tools, such measurements can be taken from a top-down or centralized
> perspective, especially by researchers involved in performing such
> analyses. Note as well that emissions by suppliers are not confined
> to energy suppliers. It is logically inconsistent to measure and
> report emissions from energy suppliers while ignoring emissions by
> all other suppliers. Current practices and protocols are rife with
> hypocrisy here. They should either all be in, or all be out.
> It is also interesting to note that supply chain approaches to
> emissions measurement and reporting are always upstream oriented.
> Why? If the purpose of such protocols is to measure emissions
> comprehensively, why aren’t downstream emissions included as well?
> Why shouldn’t an automobile parts manufacturer, for example, be
> including the emissions of the automobile makers and retailers it
> sells to, instead of only the suppliers it buys from? Indeed, why
> shouldn’t such a manufacturer include the emissions given off by end-
> users and the landfills they use to dispose of their products at the
> end of their lifecycle on the downstream side? Why are such
> protocols only focused on the upstream supply side, and not the
> downstream demand side? If it is because of control and
> accountability, then see points 1 and 2 above. A protocol can’t have
> it both ways.
> Instead of expecting energy consumers to account for their energy
> suppliers’ emissions, we should shift such accountability back to
> suppliers where it belongs (or wherever direct emissions occur), and
> expect consumers, instead, to maximize (and measure and report) their
> use of low-to-no-emissions energy. By doing the latter, pressure can
> be brought to bear on suppliers to minimize their use of fossil
> fuels, even as consumers (i.e., businesses, in particular) can take
> claim and be rewarded for choosing suppliers who do. Here it is
> important to note that the former involves a greenhouse gas emissions
> metric, and the latter involves a procurement metric. The current
> debate over where to place accountability for greenhouse gas
> emissions fails to make this important distinction, and that is one
> of its great flaws.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark
>
>
> Mark W. McElroy
> Executive Director
> Center for Sustainable Innovation
> www.sustainableinnovation.org
> (802) 785-2293 (office)
> (802) 296-1928 (mobile)
>
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