Atmospheric Accountants: Entrepreneurial Authority and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol
Atmospheric Accountants: Entrepreneurial Authority and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol
This chapter examines a case of entrepreneurial authority in the climate change regime: the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. The protocol is a set of accounting standards to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions created by individual firms. These standards were created by two nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and have subsequently become one of the most widely accepted accounting methodologies for measuring and reporting emissions. The chapter explains how these NGOs were able to insert themselves into the policy process while the United States and European Union were arguing about an appropriate role for emissions trading. In particular, it considers the success of WRI and WBCSD in creating the de facto standard for GHG emissions accounting at the firm (or “corporate”) level.
Keywords: entrepreneurial authority, climate change, Greenhouse Gas Protocol, greenhouse gas emissions, World Resources Institute, World Business Council on Sustainable Development, United States, European Union, emissions trading, emissions accounting
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