Chic & Health

Within The Climate Registry, there are organizational boundaries that define requirements for the accounting and reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They specifically define which emissions an entity is tracking and reporting. A number of companies throughout North America are voluntarily providing this information on an ongoing basis in an effort to reduce the potential for global warming.

To define organizational boundaries, we need to look at an entity’s operation and specifically whether it is controlled or owned by the reporting company. This reporting can be broken down on the basis of a controlled consolidation or an equity share.

One of the means of defining organizational boundaries is the equity share approach. This accounting method is used to report greenhouse gases emissions for each operation based on its sheer of the economic pie. The percentage would determine the extent of ownership that an entity has based on a simple profit and loss share of the entire operation.

The control approach for defining organizational boundaries is the emissions accounting method in which an entity reports 100% of its greenhouse gas emissions from all operations under its operational or financial control. Ownership, whether full or partial, does not factor into the equation.

Within North America, the Climate Registry distributes important information concerning greenhouse gas emissions. The Registry was established as a nonprofit and nongovernmental organization and now maintains important standards to calculate and report emissions in a unified manner. Some 330 corporations from government, industry and nonprofit sectors, are members of the Registry.

Under the greenhouse gas emissions registry, full organizational boundaries reporting is required for administrative buildings; revenue and non-revenue services operated by an entity; leased or owned stations and facilities operated by the entity; services provided by an entity under contract to another company; vanpools; and paratransit or other privately operated services contracted to the entity.

It has been known for a long time that greenhouse gases leads to global warming. Several environmentally damaging gases are found in refrigeration and cooling systems, and known villains include hydrochlorofluorocarbons, chlorofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and carbon dioxide, methane, chlorine, bromine, nitrous oxide, methyl bromide, methyl chloroform, sulfur hexafluoride, hydroxyl, halons, carbon tetrachloride, fluorine, and the fluorinated gases hydrofluorinated ethers and nitrogen trifluoride.

The Climate Registry include an inventory management plan, under which facilities are required to indicate their reporting methods. Facilities must determine whether they are using the control approach with equity share using operational control criteria, control approach with equity share using financial control, control approach based on operational control, or control approach based upon financial control criteria. The document produced must also indicate a master list of the buildings under the entities organizational boundaries, together with address, ownership percentage, types of emissions and types of equipment. This complex tracking requirement prompts many facilities using refrigeration and air conditioning systems or heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems to use refrigerant management programs to automatically track and report.