The world needs to decarbonize to avoid the worst effects of climate change, we aren’t doing it fast enough. Cleaning up electricity is essential for cutting emissions from today's grid while still meeting surging demand from data centers, transport, and electrified heating. Corporate clean energy procurement has been a powerful engine for this, driving at least 200 GW of new capacity worldwide. But if we use an accounting system that reflects what actually changes in the atmosphere, the next investments will go further and faster toward a clean global grid.

Today's GHG accounting system does not encourage the fastest progress on reducing emissions. GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (and specifically Scope 2) is attributional: it divides up responsibility for emissions that have already happened. That allocation of blame might be useful to some, but it doesn’t tell companies what impact their actions caused, nor does it help them identify the most impactful projects.

This shows up across Scope 2. The location-based method uses average emissions factors, which describe the whole grid's mix rather than the specific generation an action adds or displaces. The market-based method counts all clean megawatt-hours the same, regardless of the resources they actually displace, then matches them to consumption, but only within the same market boundary. Match consumption with enough certificates, and the footprint reads as zero. This is the accounting system 97% of companies voluntarily use to estimate their “footprint.” This standard is useful only to a point. It is a widely used way for companies to compare the numbers each of them puts on paper at the end of the year. But it doesn’t track their real impact, because that is not what it was built to do.

What is needed, to encourage the fastest progress on climate, is a shift toward using an accounting system that reflects and rewards authentic climate action. Above all, it should track its objective, not a proxy, meaning it should quantify the real atmospheric impact that companies cause and can change. It should give credit for authentic impacts, while not reflecting bogus claims. It shouldn’t impose restrictions that impede genuine impact. It should also have the best qualities of the current standard. Reports should be comparable. It should enable target setting and tracking progress towards goals. The reporting mechanics should be practical, using data that companies already have.

When the governing metric is real-world impact, incentives align with it. Efficiency, load shifting, storage, transmission, and siting new clean generation in the dirtiest grids each earn credit proportional to the emissions they displace or avoid — based specifically on timing or location, but not artificially constrained by these. The focus moves from reducing blame on paper to decarbonizing the system as a whole. The cleanest, highest-impact choices are the ones that score best.

The pieces that make up this ideal accounting system are well-established, but under-used. It’s time to seriously consider Impact Accounting if we want to accelerate climate progress.

Impact Accounting sets out to answer the key question: how does an action change total emissions into the atmosphere? Impact Accounting uses a consequential framework to answer the question. The true emissions impact of an activity, anywhere in the world, includes all of the emissions directly or indirectly induced, avoided, or removed specifically because of that activity. Consequential analysis is the gold standard in science for estimating the true impact. Even though true impact cannot be measured with 100% accuracy, an impactful consequential analysis will estimate the true impact accurately enough to lead to the most impactful choice.

Comparing ways to account for emissions from electricity-related activity.

These resources provide both practical tools to implement Impact Accounting and the academic and regulatory foundations rooted in consequential analysis and accounting.